Friday Morning Links

• Some odd stuff going on with insurance firms and Pension funds.  This deems keeping an eye on and have a closer understanding of.  I don't quite grasp it all myself yet, but I know this is something I will delve deeper into as time allows.  From Izabella Kaminska at FTAlphaville
• Something related to robo-signers and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) investors. From Tracy Alloway of FTAlphaville
• A terrific article from William Black over at Huffington Post website.  Writing on the ultimate and colossal failure of Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary and Director of the National Economic Council for the White House.  Not many men can say they failed their country in a major way on two different occasions. Larry Summers can.
• Tim Fernholz gives an easy to understand and thorough explanation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). From New America Foundation
• Satyajit Das gives his sage thoughts on the European Credit markets and the risks to all involved. From Wilmott
• China plays hardball by rejecting corn imports from America.  What will our newly elected Republican controlled House of Representatives do about this???  Probably nothing.  Story from Reuters
• Interesting stuff on the Federal Reserve balance sheet and asset durations.  From ZeroHedge blog
• This is an old post from a WSJ blog, about 3 weeks old, but I still think it is worthy of a look at and still very relevant to now.  Talking about purchasing of bonds and the yields on bonds. From WSJ "Marketbeat" blog
• ProPublica picks up on the Magnetar CDO story again. From Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica
• Some stuff on unsecured bank debt from Izabella Kaminska of FTAlphaville
• A little soap opera style melodrama from some financial pundits.  I tend to take Joe Weisenthal's side on this particular issue.  Roubini doing a little "face-saving" here, but I don't know who is buying.  From Izabella Kaminska of FTAlphaville
• Yves Smith with an NYT Editorial/Comment on banks and those in the mortgage securitization industry taking shortcuts and not fulfilling their contractual obligations.  The entire economy may suffer slowly because of the banks' irresponsibility.  From New York Times
• SEC investigating JP Morgan Chase and Magnetar.  From ZeroHedge blog
• James Kwak in "The Stradder".  The Straddler is an Online Journal published in the Fall and Spring each year.
• CDOs and "Assymetric Information".  A terrific post by Tracy Alloway at FTAlphaville.  Highly Recommended reading
• There is a huge agency problem in the asset management industry.  Izabella Kaminska of FTAlphaville has a terrific post on this. Highly Recommended reading
• Menzie Chinn explains something that is very easy to understand (when a good teacher like Professor Chinn explains it).  Something that is very easy to understand, and yet, few people do. From Econbrowser blog.
• David Rosenberg gives his thoughts on markets (Nov. 3).  This is taken from ZeroHedge blog, but originally from Gluskin Sheff
• Howard Gleckman on the mid-term elections of Nov. 2 and what it means for Fiscal Policy  From TAXVOX
• Nate Silver helps to explain why I feel it is so transparent that Rasmussen Polls (also its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research) are just lapdogs for Republicans.  From Andrew Sullivan's The Dish blog
• Scamwatch, from Stuart Pfeifer of LATimes.
• We get to kill two birds with one stone on this link:  Our Female Vision of The Day: Tina Fey and some humor as well. Maybe a short commercial there, just wait for the video and ENJOY!!!!