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Features of the week

Welcome to our "Features of the week", where we pull together some of the most interesting articles, news, and interview features around and present them to you in a single, convenient post. There's some great stuff ahead, so grab a chair and enjoy.

1. Recruiting brains: Back in the early 1990s, Bill Gates surprised Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard when he told him that Microsoft's chief competitor was Goldman Sachs. Why Goldman?

Gates explained that Microsoft was in the "IQ business" and needed the best brains available to continue its development and success. Therefore, the company had to compete with top-tier investment firms in an effort to attract the best available young minds.

This trend is becoming even more apparent in recent years, and Bloomberg chronicles it in, "Goldman Meets Match In Googleplex When Recruiting Graduates".

2. Too much leverage? FT's Gillian Tett wonders if we've learned our lesson from LTCM.

3. Presidential candidate Ron Paul is face to face with mainstream media bias (and plain rudeness) as he joins ABC News' George Stephanopolous for a sit down interview.

4. Ron Paul remembers the life and achievements of Dr. Hans F. Sennholz.

5. Dollar pays for European interest rates as the Euro reaches new highs against the dollar.

6. Minesite interviews investor Marc Faber in a two-part audio interview. Parts one & two.

7. Richard Daughty (aka, Mogambo Guru) on the "Pressure Cooker of Inflationary Food Prices".

8. Five business lessons from Costco. Hat tip to Abnormal Returns on this one.

9. Hyperinflation and political oppression make for, "Desperate times in Zimbabwe".

10. Zimbabwe. "How to stay alive when it all runs out".

11. An Economist special audio report on changes in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.

12. FT Markets - "Global overview: Gloom turns to euphoria".

13. Via FT Alphaville, Insitutional Investor's, "20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds".

14. What will become of the Merc's trading floor in the wake of the CME-CBOT deal? A little bit of Chicago trading history in this piece from Bloomberg.

15. Guess who wants to outlaw Porsches and Ferraris in Europe? Bloomberg's Doron Levin on the secondary agenda behind the EU's CO2 emissions laws.

16. Sham Gad on Value Investing. The blog of a young value investor who hopes to build an investment partnership modeled after the original Buffett Partnership and Pabrai Fund.

That's all, folks! Have a great weekend.
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