Thursday Morning Links

• I don't like ETFs (exchange-traded funds) at all.  They encourage investor laziness, charge high fees, and performance is generally abysmal.  Some liars out there try to convince people that ETFs are a good way to make a "play" on Gold or Silver.  Can't trust it.  Here's a related story on base-metal physical ETFs from Izabella Kaminska of FTAlphaville.
• You may have heard of something called MERS lately.  That's an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems.  (If you don't understand MERS, David Dayen of Firedoglake blog gives the best explanation I have seen here) MERS is part of the large mess of poorly processed (some think fraud) foreclosures in U.S. residential mortgages.  But this also could be affecting CMBS, Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities.  Tracy Alloway breaks down the details about MERS and CMBS at FTAlphaville.
• A topic I don't hear people mention too often (I think I might have heard Yves Smith mention them a couple times during the height of the credit crisis).  CLOs---Collateralised Loan Obligations.  More CLOs is a sign the market is moving back to "risk on".  Or maybe they just think taxpayers will subsidize large banks' risk again. From Tracy Alloway of FTAlphaville
• HFT (high-frequency trading) screwing up markets again.  What is called "quote stuffing".  This time done on an ETF named SPDR--Select Sector Fund--Financials, otherwise known as XLF.  From ZeroHedge blog (including a detailed look at the "quote stuffing" from Nanex)
• Peter Orszag (President Obama's former budget director) criticizes QE2. Orszag's main point (as I read it) is that fiscal spending is a lot more useful than monetary policy, and that long-term interest rates (long-term meaning 10 years or more) are artificially low (too low). An Opinion piece in the New York Times.
• A brief and interesting post about yield, financing costs, debt securities, and Federal Reserve policy. The best part is the absolutely stupendous graph at the bottom of the post which was originally done at Barclays Capital.   From Econompicdata blog
• When all is said and done, and this huge mistake comes to its full "fruition" (or finally overflows from the toilet), the 5 sellouts on the Supreme Court will have a lot to answer for in how they helped to suppress and repress Democracy in America with their decision in "Citizens United" vs. Federal Election Commission.  Story from David G. Savage in Washington and link from LA Times.
• Our Female Vision of The Day: Brandy.  From wwtdd.com website