via WSJ.com

• COMMENTARY

• By JASON ZWEIG

When someone asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he famously replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

That might have been true in the 1930s, but it no longer seems to apply.

A new study of data on bank robberies, published in the June 2012 issue of the statistical journal Significance, finds that bank robbers don’t get much swag when they pull off a heist. In the U.K., the average haul is just £12,707 per person (roughly $19,767), or less than six months of the average wage for full-time workers there.

REASD THE REST HERE 

Egan Jones Cuts France To BBB+, Outlook Negative

Developing…

via 

Ponzi scheme financier sentenced to 110 years in prison.

via Bloomberg.com

developing…

via CNBC.com and Reuters

European shares closed mixed on Thursday after data which showed that U.S. jobless claims had risen

 The FTSEurofirst 300 [.FTEU3  983.50    -3.45  (-0.35%)   ] closed slightly lower Thursday afternoon, hovering just above an intraday low of 975.24 points.

Germany’s DAX [.GDAXI  6126.66    -25.83  (-0.42%)   ]   was also lower, while France’s CAC-40 index [.FCHI  3031.23    1.19  (+0.04%)   ] rose.

via CNBC.com

Crude currently up 0.15%

HBO and the honchos behind “Game of Thrones” have issued an official apology for putting George W. Bush‘s head on a spike in an episode during Season 1.

You may have heard … producers recently revealed they used a Dubya mask as the base for a prop of a decapitated head … .which actually appeared on the show.

Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss insisted the move was NOT a political statement … but an honest mistake.

The two released a joint statement saying, “We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.”

READ THE REST AT TMZ.COM 

Egypt’s highest court declares parliament invalid

BY DARREN ROVELL
When the Seattle Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder, there likely wasn’t a single person who would have predicted that the team would become the hottest ticket in the NBA.

But that’s exactly what has happened.

Tickets on the secondary market have soared for the Thunder all season and the NBA Finals is no exception.

StubHub reports that tickets to Game 1 and Game 2 on Tuesday and Thursday in Oklahoma City are selling for an average of $708 and $827 a ticket, respectively. Compare that to Miami, whose Game 3 and 4 on Saturday and Tuesday are selling for an average of $617 and $472 a ticket.

READ THE REST HERE AT CNBC.COM

See the rest of the photos in an article that Boston.com ran two years ago by clicking here.

U.S. troops disembark from a landing vehicle on Utah Beach on the coast of Normandy, France in June of 1944. Carcasses of destroyed vehicles litter the beach. (Regional Council of Basse-Normandie/U.S. National Archives)

2

U.S. Soldiers march through a southern English coastal town, en route to board landing ships for the invasion of France, circa late May or early June 1944. (Army Signal Corps Collection/U.S. National Archives) #

3

General view of a port in England; in foreground, jeeps are being loaded onto landing craft – in background, larger trucks and ducks are being loaded, June 1944. (U.S. National Archives) #

4

The sight of a low-flying Allied plane sends Nazi soldiers rushing for cover on a beach in France, before D-Day June 1944. The aircraft was taking reconnaissance photos of German coastal barriers in preparation for the June 6th invasion. (AP Photo) #

5

Coast Guard Flotilla 10 tied up along with British landing craft, preparing to sail the English Channel and invade Nazi-occupied France. These landing craft landed U.S. troops on Omaha Beach. (U.S. Army) #

6

German soldiers observe the coast during the occupation of Normandy by German forces in 1944. (Regional Council of Basse-Normandie/U.S. National Archives)#

7

A-20 bombers make a return visit to the Pointe Du Hoc coastal battery on 22 May 1944. (U.S. National Archives) #

8

Allied convoys of ships on the open sea – June 1944. (Regional Council of Basse-Normandie/U.S. National Archives) #

9

Allied troop carriers near Omaha beach, one covered with a thick white smoke, June 1944. (Regional Council of Basse-Normandie/U.S. National Archives) #

A very rare occurrence. From wikipedia.com

A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH 

Top al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al Libi is dead via @NewYorkPost 

Wading into the debate over stop-and-frisk police tactics, Gov.Andrew M. Cuomo plans to ask legislators on Monday for a change in New York State law that would drastically reduce the number of people who could be arrested for marijuana possession as a result of police stops.

READ THE REST AT NYTIMES.COM CLICK HERE 

Asian stocks slid on Monday as disappointing U.S. jobs data added to concerns over a slowing Chinese economy and a deepening euro zone debt crisis.

The flight from risk also weighed on bonds, with the benchmark Japanese government bond yield dropping to a nine-year low. The 10-year JGB yield fell 2 basis points to 0.790 percent, its lowest level since July 2003.

The FTSE CNBC Asia 100 Index [.FTFCNBCA  5583.19    -75.04  (-1.33%)], which measures markets across Asia, slipped 0.6 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei average [.N225  8262.82    -177.43  (-2.1%)] shed 1.9 percent at the open to 8,278.65, while the broader Topix shed 1.9 percent to 695.67.

Nomura shares tumbled 4 percent after it replaced the head of institutional sales at its core securities unit, following an escalating investigation by regulators into its suspected role in insider trading.

Nintendo fell 1.5 percent despite it announcing its much anticipated successor to its Wii games console, the Wii U, will come with an online social network, dubbed Miiverse, to connect gamers.

Seoul shares tanked 2.8 percent at the open, down for a fourth straight session after weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data aggravated fears of a global economic slowdown.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) [.KS11  1792.12    -42.39  (-2.31%)   ] fell 51.67 points to 1,783.5 points.

READ THE REST HERE AT CNBC.COM

That headline is way too tame to be a contrarian indicator…although he is leading with the market.

(@chessNwine commentary)

On the top of the iBankCoin.com home page, you will find a continuously updated stream of useful quotes.

In addition, you can follow @FuturesQuotes on Twitter, a concoction of iBC friend and PPT/12631 Distinguished Gentleman, @gapandyap

Flight to safety—,lowest yield since July 2003.

via @CNBC On Twitter

Forget waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay prisoners are now being tortured by BIG BIRD — at least according to a new documentary released by Al Jazeera.

According to the doc — called “Songs of War” — detainees at the U.S. Naval base have been forced to wear headphones blaring Sesame Street music on repeat for hours or days on end … to break their will (start at 2:00).

SEE THE REST HERE AT TMZ.COM