Financial News: 2010-01-03

I almost wrote the date as 2009 yet again. Sheesh. For those of you who took it easy over the weekend and haven’t read any CW material yet, welcome to the next decade. See the 160-story tower that awaits you in Dubai below.

Must read

A dark privatised Social Security story: Astarra, the missing money and how examining a fund manager owned by Joe Biden’s family led to substantial regulatory action in Australia – John Hempton

“In Mid September I wrote a letter to Australian regulators which detailed my concerns about a fund manager in Australia known as the Astarra Strategic Fund – formerly known as Absolute Alpha.  This letter resulted in regulatory action against a cluster of related funds (almost twenty), however my letter was almost entirely about only one fund in the group.”

• What’s a Bailed-Out Banker Really Worth? – NYTimes.com
• Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery – NYTimes.com
• Government to Double Japan Air Credit to $2.2 Billion, AFP Says – Bloomberg.com
• Sandy Weill’s Je Ne Regrette Rien at the NYT Falls Very Flat – naked capitalism – Yves Smith
• Devastated by the news of a pension overpayment |Money |The Observer
• FT.com – Russia stops oil shipments to Belarus
• No to Bernanke – The Baseline Scenario – James Kwak
• That Staggering Greek Deficit Continues To Stagger Onwards and Upwards | Edward Hugh
• Hypo Alpe Adria – BayernLB – Parteispenden | egghat’s blog (The mess at bankrupt Austrian bank Alpe Aldria gets worse. Now it looks like politicians could have received money.)
• Google’s evil policy on shutting down blogs | Felix Salmon | Reuters (I spoke to John and things are back to normal. But, given my recent posts about government coercion in the blogosphere, this story is a stark reminder of what is coming)
• Sandy Weill Tells NYT Citigroup’s Managers Failed the Company – Bloomberg.com
• New York Times Takes Aim at Treasury Mortgage Mod Program – naked capitalism
• Cultural attitudes on work, leisure and wealth in Europe and America – Credit Writedowns (A post on taxes at Economist’s View reminded me of this. I linked to it yesterday.)
• Warnings not heeded, self-referential edition – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com

Today’s Bread & Circus feature: Dubai and the 2600 foot building