JP Morgan, internet scammers

Felix Salmon has just done a great job of shining some light on the world of internet scams and finds JP Morgan at the bottom of it all.

Surprised? Nah, me neither. Here's the link to his post, today's essential reading.

LatAm competitiveness

Felix Salmon has a post up about the Davos Global Competitiveness Report version 2009 that came out today (or was it yesterday?) and Salmon gets the analysis more or less right. He also links to the report itself, so check out the source material from there.

Now of course we don't give two hoots...

..about silly thirdworld places like "Switzerland" and "The Netherlands" and the others in the top 10. We also guffaw about the fact that the USA, ground zero to the world's financial and economic woes, still makes the top 100. All we love is LatAm, so here's how the important countries fared in the ranking this year.

Country	Ranking
Chile	30
Costa Rica	55
Brazil	56
Mexico	60
Uruguay	65
Colombia	69
Peru	78
Argentina	85
Ecuador	105
Venezuela	113
Bolivia	120
Paraguay	124

Yeah, Chile...Chile, Chile, Chile. Always Chile, isn't it? Costa Rica we love you.. Brazil is TheNewRespectable™, Uruguay has jumped 9 places to 65 this year. And big surprise, the freemarketeers hate TheAxisOfEvo™. Or in other words, waddya expect?

Chuck Norris Financial Facts

These are so good I am contractually obliged as a finance-esque blogger to share.

Please go over to Felix Salmon's blog to get the full post. He picked them up from Epicurean Dealmaker's Twitterfeed. Here are the first three on the list, get the others over Chez Salmon.

• Little-known Chuck Norris Fact: Chuck Norris does not mark to market. The market marks to Chuck.

• More: Chuck Norris does not go bankrupt. Chuck Norris ruptures banks.

• Source of hedge fund survivorship bias?: Funds that pay Chuck Norris 2 and 20 survive; others don’t.