Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 past 11. I welcome your additions and comments below or please send suggestions for Monday's Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz 
1. A fear of running - Wealthy Greeks have pulled 8 billion euros in cash out of their banks in Greece and sent it to abroad in the last two months because they fear a sovereign default might trigger a run on the banks there, the Wall St Journal is reporting. The endgame is nigh.
"Some of our clients are concerned about a run on the banks if the IMF gets involved," said another private banker, this one from a foreign bank. "They believe the situation in Greece will get worse before it gets better. There is also very little clarity from the government about its intentions on new tax measures." "We estimate that €8 billion has moved out of Greece to accounts abroad since December. It's money from bank accounts, stock sales, property sales and other sources," he said, adding that that represented a substantial chunk of the €30 billion under management in Greek's private banks.
2. China's sex problem - Patrick Chovanec is a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing and often comes up with some interesting commentary in his blog on China. Here he points to the idea that the reluctance of many Chinese to spend is because there are many more men than women and they all need to save to impress the women. This is important because the world needs Chinese consumers to spend more and save less.
Wei Shangjin, a professor at Columbia Business School, proposes an intriguing new theory in Forbes to account for why the Chinese save so much. Conventional explanations of China's high savings rate focus on high out-of-pocket expenses for health care and education, the absence of a social safety net, and an undervalued currency that makes exports cheap and imports expensive. But in Wei's view, it all boils down to sex "” the gender ratio, that is, and the competition it causes in the marriage market. China's one-child policy was instituted in 1979, so that means there's been plenty of time for those baby boys and girls to grow up and start looking for mates. And when they pair off, there aren't enough girls to go around. According to the numbers, one out of every five young men will be unable to find a partner. Which means, if you don't want to end up the lonely heart, you better have a plan to impress the ladies. For families with boys, Wei believes, that means saving up to buy housing and other accoutrements of wealth that will help attract a mate (in fact, in some parts of China, bachelors and their parents have resorted to forking over a cash "bride price" that can go as high as US$5,000, a payment that represents several years' income for a farming family. The lucrative practice has given rise to organized scams involving "runaway brides" who take the money and disappear.
3. Double dip recession? - Europe is at risk of a double dip recession, Ambrose Evans Pritchard reports at The Telegraph.
The eurozone grew by just 0.1pc in the last quarter of 2009 as government stimulus wound down. Germany was flat; Italy contracted again; Spain and Greece were still in recession. Outside EMU, the Czech, Hungarian and Romanian economies all shrank. "We're treading a precarious path: things will have to go well in the rest of the world for Europe to avoid a double-dip recession," said Julian Callow from Barclays Capital. "Banks are facing bad loans and tougher Basel III rules. We've seen the deindustrialisation of Europe's core caused by the strong euro, which has helped Chinese exports penetrate the market. Unless the risks of debt deflation are mitigated, the European Central Bank may have to start buying assets." Gabriel Stein from Lombard Street Research said Euroland is reaping the bitter fruit of tight fiscal and monetary policy, and the over-strong euro. "It is extraordinary for the ECB to stand back and do nothing as the (M3) money supply contracts. They have done almost no quantitative easing and seem paralysed by splits. This is as bad as any policy error since World War Two," he said.
4. Big bad bubble - Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave International reckons the bond market is the biggest bubble in the history of the world, Yahoo reports.
"The individual investor has been more or less abandoning stocks" and buying bond funds, Prechter concedes. "I think that is going from the frying pan into the fire. The bond market is the biggest bubble in the history of the world. " Corporate debt, municipal debt, mortgages and consumer loans will all suffer in the great deflation Prechter believes is already underway, as detailed in his book Conquer the Crash.
5. Let it go - Simon Johnson argues at Baseline Scenario that China should stop buying US Treasuries and let its currency appreciate. It's a long piece, but well worth a read.
There is a perception that China's large dollar holdings confer upon that country some economic or political power vis-Ã -vis the United States and, in particular, that Chinese reserves prevent us from putting pressure on that country's authorities to revalue (i.e., appreciate) the renminbi. This view is incorrect and completely misunderstands the situation. It is in the interests of both the United States and global economic prosperity that China discontinues its massive intervention in the market for renminbi. This intervention is a breach of China's international commitments (as a member of the International Monetary Fund) and constitutes a form of unfair trade practice. If China were to end its intervention, the renminbi would appreciate substantially "“ likely in the region of 20-40 percent. China would also stop accumulating dollars (and other foreign assets). The primary effect would therefore be an effective depreciation of the US dollar against the Chinese renminbi "“ and against all other countries' currencies that are implicitly pegged to the renminbi (more precisely, to the dollar rate with an eye on China's competitiveness). On a trade-weighted basis "“ and in real effective terms (despite the fact that the currencies of our other major trading partners float freely) "“ the dollar would also likely fall in value. Such a movement in the dollar would help expand our exports and improve our ability to compete against imports; this would aid in the process of recovery, job creation, and broader adjustment in the US economy. Even a substantial movement in the dollar "“ e.g., a 20 percent depreciation in real effective terms, which is most unlikely "“ would have no noticeable effect on inflation and therefore would not force the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates. The "hard landing" scenario for the dollar "“ feared by analysts since the traumatic experiences of the 1970s "“ is unlikely for the US today, given the low level of inflation expectations and the high "output gap" (reflected in measured unemployment near 10 percent and true unemployment of at least 15 percent).
6. Max Keiser interviews Steve Keen about Australia's overvalued housing market. The interview starts at 12:50. 7. Wood allowances - Phillip Coggan, who is the Buttonwood columnist at The Economist, has some interesting details on the level of corruption and waste inside the Greek public service that explains why the rest of Europe is so reluctant to bail the Greeks out.
Tax evasion is so rife here that the provision of a receipt is an onerous imposition. One person told me that when his child was born last year, he had to pay the doctor 2500 euros; his receipt was for just 1500. A planned government reform is that anyone wanting to claim the 12,000 euro tax allowance will need to produce that amount of receipts; a clever way of getting the tax system in order. Another area of reform is of the benefits received by civil servants that can be up to half the salary. This even includes a "wood allowance" dating back to the days of wood-fired heating. The biggest potential for pension reform is not raising the pension age but enforcing the existing one; most public sector workers have retired by 59.
8. Tightening China - Chinese banks are now moving to raise cash to boost their capital amid tighter rules from regulators. It's all part of the grand tightening that's going on there, FT Alphaville reports.
As the FT reports, this week alone, Chinese lenders have announced plans to raise up to Rmb76bn (£7.2bn) through equity and bond sales, with at least Rmb150bn of bank fundraising in the pipeline. It's hardly surprising in light of what you might call "creative loan classification" and discreet accounting antics that appear to be taking place in the engine rooms of big Chinese banks
9. How to break up the euro - Serious people are now talking about the death of the euro. UBS Chief Economist Paul Donovan says it's now clear the current Euro monetary union does not work, FT Alphaville reports.
That the Euro area is not an optimal currency area is generally agreed upon. The European economies are sufficiently diverse that external shocks hit different economies with differing degrees of severity. The asymmetrical nature of any shock is also likely to persist for longer. This is something that has been well understood for some time. Indeed, fourteen years ago UBS economists concluded that "a monetary union extending beyond the core six [European] economies would not work properly in economic terms." The analysis identified those economies that could realistically be called an optimal currency area, those economies that could satisfy the Maastricht criteria (on a relatively liberal interpretation), and those economies for which there was a strong political will in favour of monetary union. The analysis suggested that Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal failed to meet real economic or financial criteria. Ireland and Finland were felt to meet the financial and political criteria, but also failed to meet the real economic test.
10. Totally irrelevant video - We must save the newspaper. HT Tama Easton via email
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