Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments below or please send suggestions for Friday's Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz We don't have an HR department at interest.co.nz, which is a good thing... 
1. 'Not so responsible' - Brian Fallow comes out strongly in his NZHerald against the ACT-inspired Regulatory Responsibility Bill that is set to be discussed by cabinet in April. He reflects the views of those worried the courts will end up second-guessing stuff decided by politicians.
It would redefine the relationship between Parliament and the courts in a way neither is likely to welcome. And it would tend to entrench the current distribution of wealth by setting a high hurdle for any legislated redistribution of resources. One of the draft bill's central principles is that legislation "should not take or impair ... . property without the consent of the owner, unless the taking or impairment is in the public interest and full compensation ... is provided to the owner." That sounds fair enough. But how do you define "property" or "taking" or "public interest"? How would "full compensation" differ from the "just compensation" enshrined in the US Bill of Rights? How would you calculate it? Are the taxes we pay to support the welfare state, for example, uncompensated expropriation?
2. Tentacles everywhere - Goldman Sachs, the Vampire Squid of the global financial markets, helped Greece cover up the extent of its budget deficit for years through a series of swaps contracts, Bloomberg reports. This story will run and run. It is one of the reasons why the temperature around the Greek debt issue is so high. Trust has been undermined.
No mention was made of the swap in sales documents for the securities in at least six of the 10 sales the bank arranged for Greece since the transaction, according to a review of the prospectuses by Bloomberg. The New York-based firm helped Greece raise $1 billion of off-balance-sheet funding in 2002 through the swap, which European Union regulators said they knew nothing about until recent days. Failing to disclose the swap may have allowed Goldman, a co-lead manager on many of the sales, other underwriters and Greece to get a better price for the securities, said Bill Blain, co-head of fixed income at Matrix Corporate Capital LLP, a London-based broker and fund manager. "The price of bonds should reflect the reality of Greece's finances," Blain said. "If a bank was selling them to investors on the basis of publicly available information, and they were aware that information was incorrect, then investors have been fooled."
3. The debt mountain - The Bank for Institutional Settlements has produced a useful presentation here on the scale of the sovereign debt problems facing the world, particularly as populations age. It also talks about the problems of intergenerational equity (code for Generations X, Y vs the Babyboomers). The BIS's conclusion is that debt projections should include the baby boomer spending explosion just about to hit and action to cut spending and increase taxes is required now. Again, these are not nutters or teabaggers. These are Swiss bankers. Is John Key listening? How can he possibly promise never to resign if he touches pension entitlements?
4. A lone voice - Thomas Hoenig is a bit like the lone ranger within the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy setting committee (FOMC). He dissented at the last meeting about holding US short term interest rates at near zero for a long period. He wants rates to rise sooner and is very worried about the US government's deficit. This week he warned the United States must fix its debt problems or face a new crisis. This guy is no nutter. He is the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and is on the FOMC. It takes a brave man to speak out against the orthodoxy of all your friends and colleagues. Hoenig is a bit of a hero to many. The FT has the story.
Mr Hoenig said that rising debt was infringing on the central bank's ability to fulfil its goals of maintaining price stability and long-term economic growth. "Stunning" deficit projections were putting political pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates low, infringing on its independence at the risk of inflation, he said. "Without pre-emptive action, the US risks its next crisis," Mr Hoenig said in a speech at the Pew-Peterson Commission on Budget Reform. The worst option for the US was a scenario where the government "knocks on the central bank's door" and asks it to print more money. Instead, the administration must find ways to cut spending and generate revenue. He called for a "reallocation of resources" and noted that the process would be painful and politically inconvenient. If the Fed succumbed to pressure to increase the money supply, Mr Hoenig said, inflation would lead to a loss of confidence in the dollar and in the economy. Meanwhile, a potential stalemate between the fiscal and monetary authorities that govern the economy could allow growing imbalances to go unchecked, thus raising the costs of borrowing and of capital for the US.
5. Take that! - Martin Wolf has hammered back at FT colleague Niall Ferguson's startling 'America is just like Greece' article from a few days back. It's a good old stoush between big thinking, heavy hitters. Wolf says Ferguson's recipe for slashing deficits would just tip the world back into recession. My vote is with Ferguson, but the debate is worth having.
If these governments had decided to balance their budgets, as many conservatives demand, two possible outcomes can be envisaged: the plausible one is that we would now be in the Great Depression redux; the fanciful one is that, despite huge increases in taxation or vast cuts in spending, the private sector would have borrowed and spent as if no crisis at all had happened. In other words, a massive fiscal tightening would actually expand the economy. This is to believe in magic. Now we come to the big dilemma: what if private deleveraging and fiscal deficits continue in the US and elsewhere for years, as they did in Japan? Then triple A-rated countries, including even the US, might lose all fiscal headroom. This has not yet happened to Japan. It might well not happen to the US. But it could. So, yes, high-income countries face huge fiscal challenges. And yes, the crisis-hit countries start from grossly unsustainable fiscal positions. But the US is not Greece. Moreover, a massive fiscal tightening today would be a grave error. There is a huge risk "“ in my view, a certainty "“ that this would tip much of the world back into recession. The private sector must heal. That, not fiscal retrenchment, is the priority.
6. 'Money doesn't matter' - John Lanchester writes thoughtfully here at FT.com about how earning big chunks of money doesn't really matter in this world. I think he's right, broadly. But I suspect it's easier for someone with lots of money to say this... HT samfromwgtn via Twitter
The moral of the story is that even if you think you understand the impact economic forces can have, they can still strike dangerously close to home. It helps to have a compass, and mine is based on two principles, both of them learnt from my banker father: anxiety is freedom, and the way you are living will have been your life.
7. Personal Finance lessons from Fight Club - A young man named Adam Baker has created a US website called Man vs Debt which is a well of useful sayings about debt and our consumer society, including plenty of quotes from Tyler Durden in the underground hit movie Fight Club.
On the pursuits of material possessions"¦ "The things you own end up owning you." Let's start the party off right. This is not only my favorite, but certainly one of the most popular quotes in the entire movie. The lead-up, timing, and delivery make it's impact undeniable. As I mentioned in my last post, my suggestion for this is to create a list of everything you own"¦ and sell half within the next two weeks. Or rig your condo and blow them all up. Whatever floats your boat. On avoiding lifestyle inflation"¦ "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken" Leveraging debt and living outside of your means has its benefits. For example, on a short time, frame you can get very good at looking wealthy, happy, or successful. Heck, you can even feel these emotions for a while. But in the long run it's all imitation. You can pretend all you want, but eventually it's going to crumble.
8. Right out there - Irwin Stelzer is a commentator for Rupert Murdoch's The Times and has come out with the startling recommendation to UK Conservative Leader David Cameron that he goes straight to the IMF for a bailout immediately after the UK general election later this year.
"What would I do if I were David Cameron? I would look at the books" and "I would say: "˜Shock, horror, I've found it's much worse than I thought and so Gordon Brown has forced me to call in the IMF,'" Stelzer said, speaking at an event in London late yesterday. Such a move would be reminiscent of 1976 when then- Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey sought an emergency loan from the IMF. Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the U.K. is now running the largest budget deficit since at least World War II, prompting Standard & Poor's to lower its outlook on Britain's AAA rating to negative from stable in May. "You need to do something profoundly unpopular," said Stelzer, who is director of the economic policy studies group at the Washington-based Hudson Institute and an adviser to Rupert Murdoch. "If it takes undemocratic means, I would say you have no choice but to call in the IMF."
9. Gridlocked- The inability of America's political system to control the rampant pork and the need to bribe taxpayers with their own money could be its downfall. The New York Times asks whether gridlock means the US budget deficit is uncontrollable until a crisis such as a dollar collapse or Treasury bond auction failure.
After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation's foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs. Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November's elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy. "I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one," said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. "These days I wonder if this country is even governable." Sensing political advantage, Republicans are resisting President Obama's call for a bipartisan commission to cut the debt, although recent studies have implicated the tax cuts and spending policies of the years after 2000 when they controlled Congress and the White House. Even seven Republican senators who had co-sponsored a bill to create a commission nonetheless voted against it recently.
10. Totally irrelevant video - The Muppets get Rick Rolled...or is Rick that gets Muppets Rolled?
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