Backed Securities facts
While investigating facts about Backed Securities, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Lincoln originally invited Ulysses S. Grant and his wife to the Ford Theater. Grant accepted, but later backed out because their wives' hated each other. If Grant had gone, his security detail would likely have prevented Lincoln's assassination.
Standard and Poors, the rating company (and among others) that helped create the financial meltdown of 2008 was "paid a fortune by Wall Street to hand out pristine AAA ratings to the subprime mortgage-backed securities"
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 30 of the best facts about Backed Securities I managed to collect.
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Mortal Kombat II was so popular when it hit the arcades that several of the machines were later installed with deadlock security panels on the back to prevent thieves from ripping the game's motherboard straight out of the machine and taking it home.
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Whitey Bulger, the notorious gangster, had served time in the maximum security prison of Alcatraz for four years. Later, while on the lam as one of America's most wantef federal fugitives, he went back to tour the facility.
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Qian Xuesen, a Chinese aerospace engineer who was a founding member of JPL. When he was stripped of his security clearances during the Red Scare despite protests by his colleagues, he moved back to China where he became well known as the "Father of Chinese Rocketry"
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There are 14 people in the world with 'keys' to internet worldwide security ( 7 primary keepers, 7 back-up). They serve as a last-resort measure to reconstruct the system if something calamitous were to happen to the internet.
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A man stole a Salvador Dali painting in full view of security cameras in broad daylight, mailed it back to the museum a week later, and was only caught because he had shoplifted a juice bottle a year prior, allowing police to match his fingerprints on the package to those on the bottle.
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With a practice dating back to the 16th century, there are still some banks in Italy which accept wheels of Parmesan as collateral for a secured loan with favourable terms
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After filming X-Men: First Class in London, Jennifer Lawrence had to fight to get the security deposit for her Notting Hill apartment back because she had stained the bathtub blue from her makeup as the character Mystique.
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In 2011 Jeopardy host Alex Trebek woke to sounds of a woman in his hotel room going through his things. He got out of bed, put on underwear, and chased her down the hall. During the chase, Trebek snapped an Achilles tendon, but hobbled back to his room to call security, and she was apprehended.
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Lego tried to issue a Cease and Desist against the Magic Portal, the first stop-motion brick film. Luckily the creator, Lindsay Fleay, had secured a release from Lego Australia ahead of time, and Lego backed down.
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During WWI, the remote Northern Ontario town of Kapuskasing was used as an internment camp. It housed over 1000 prisoners, and had minimal security due to its isolation. Any prisoners who tried to escape were turned back by endless muskeg, clouds of mosquitoes, and -40°C in the winter.
What is true about backed securities?
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Tobey Maguire expressed concerns about his back problems preventing him from starring in the first Spiderman sequel, but when the studio secured Jake Gyllenhaal to replace him, he relented.
United States currency is not backed by gold or any other commodity. Under the Federal Reserve Act, Congress specified that Federal Reserve Banks must hold collateral equal in value to the notes in circulation. That collateral is government-sponsored enterprise securities. - source
In 1981 Brink's security guard Joe Trombino was shot with a shotgun and M16 multiple times by a group of robbers including Tupac Shakur's stepfather. Trombino, despite his injuries survived and went back to work for another 20 years before dying delivering money to the WTC on September 11th. - source
Martin Goodman, the founder of Marvel Comics, was on vacation in Europe and tried to order tickets to fly back on the Hindenburg airship. However, he was late ordering tickets and couldn't secure him and his wife seats together, so they decided to fly back on an airplane.
During Bob Dylan's performance at the 1998 Grammy Awards, one of the back-up dancers (a self-proclaimed performance artist) ripped his shirt off revealing the words 'SOY BOMB' painted in big black letters on his chest and began dancing erratically before being removed by security - source
Prior to the subprime mortgage crisis in U.S., Moody’s had issued an AAA rating to 45,000 mortgage-related securities between 2000 to 2007, which after the crisis had slumped to just 6 AAA ratings for mortgage-backed securities in 2010
Winston Churchill helped Orson Wells secure financial backing for one of his movies.
Federal agents found $20 million hidden under a mattress in Massachusetts in 2017. The cash was found during a raid by the department of homeland security that was investigating a pyramid scheme. The money was only found because a member of the scheme came back to collect it.
During WW2, the United States fought back against German and Japanese forces intercepting telecommunications by using the Navajo Native American tribe to create a coded language to securely transmit battlefield information without having to worry about it being cracked.
