Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments below or please email your suggestions for Tuesday's Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz I'm so glad I'm not in sales 
1. Will it fly? - It seems Alan Hubbard is out beating the drums for a float of his Southbury Group (Helicopters NZ, Scales Corp and South Canterbury Finance) early next year, the Sunday Star Times' Greg Ninness reports. But the Octogenarian on dialysis may struggle to flick this hodge podge of assets.
The diverse nature of the companies involved could prove a hard sell to investors. One market source told the Sunday Star-Times: "Any institutional investor putting money in there will be taking a leap of faith." The three core companies appear to have little in common other than their major shareholder and, in the case of South Canterbury and Helicopters NZ, a need for additional capital.
2. Pet liquidators - Rob Stock from the Sunday Star Times has an excellent piece covering submissions about liquidators and receivers to the Finance Company inquiry before parliament.
The receivership industry has been slated for its conflicts of interest and close-lipped attitude by frustrated investors and finance professionals in written submissions to the commerce select committee investigation into finance companies. Those calling for law changes included forensic accountant Murray Lazelle, who said shareholders and directors of finance companies should also not be allowed unfettered right to select a pet liquidator to help them cover up their wrong-doing. "In many instances a liquidator appointed by the directors is appointed for the particular purpose of ensuring that probing investigations are not undertaken," said Lazelle. If creditors get together in sufficient numbers they can have a liquidator replaced, he said, but a better solution would be to give the Securities Commission power to replace liquidators.
3. Follow the Money Managers - Greg Ninness also has a detailed piece on the poor shareholders in the ex-Money Managers property fund DNZ, which tried and failed to list on the NZX. The details are shocking and the money trail always seems to lead back to the mercurial Doug Somers Edgar.
So how did (Peter) Bruce and (Elliott) Burcher fare from all these arrangements? Not well. From his original $12,319 investment, Bruce ended up with 4928 shares in DNZ after a share consolidation last month, a stake currently valued at 82c a share or $4041, a 67% decline in value. His parents fared even worse. They invested $157,022 in the same syndicate, and now have 68,829 shares in DNZ, worth $51,520. But what Bruce and Burcher didn't know at they time they followed Money Managers' advice and made their initial investment, was how the syndicates they were buying into were managed, and who was benefitting behind the scenes. At the time Money Managers was owned by its founder, Doug Somers-Edgar. The two syndicates Bruce and Burcher invested in, on Money Managers' advice, were managed by a company called Dominion Managed Funds, which was in turn owned by a company called Dominion Funds, which was ultimately owned by Somers-Edgar and his business associate, Alastair Hasell, each with a 50% share.
4. Now that's a budget blowout -Britain is finally working out what a budget mess it is in. Alistair Darling told parliament in April the UK budget deficit would blow out to 80% of GDP from 37%. It now looks much worse as the budget deficit is expected to be 13% of GDP this year, The Daily Telegraph reported.
This country would borrow £703bn over the coming five years, Darling announced in April "“ a head-spinning 62pc more than his estimate five months earlier. Borrowing in 2009/10 alone would total £178bn "“ five times the annual average during the previous 10 years. As it turns out, even those estimates were too rosy "“ seeing as Darling's April numbers relied on the British economy contracting by "only" 3.5pc this year. Yet, as of the third quarter, the UK remains the only major economy still in recession, with GDP set to shrink by 5pc or even more. Lower growth, or steeper contraction, slashes tax receipts while stoking benefit spending "“ pulling the national accounts apart. In October, the UK's over-reliance on financial services and the housing market, both of which are struggling, meant revenues were 9.1pc lower than the same month the year before. Expenditure, meanwhile, was 10.3pc higher. No wonder the UK is set to run a budget deficit of at least 13pc of GDP next year. That's by far the biggest in our peacetime history and also almost twice as high as when Dennis Healey went "cap in hand" to the International Monetary Fund back in 1976, the last time Labour wrecked the UK's finances. Britain's national debt stock is now on course to hit 100pc of GDP by 2014 "“ not 80pc as Darling said just seven months ago. So this Wednesday's pre-Budget report is set against an even worse fiscal backdrop than that painted by the shocking Budget of April 2009.
5. Here it comes - 2010 looks like being a real hangover year. Darling is set to announce later this week the UK government needs to cut 40 billion pounds of spending, The TimesOnline reported. How will the world's economies cope as central banks put up interest rates and governments wind back their spending?
Alistair Darling will this week tell government departments that the money has run out and they face a three-year cash freeze on spending. The message, the toughest to be delivered by a chancellor since the last Labour government was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund in the 1970s, will mean public sector pay freezes and big job cuts. The cash freeze in Whitehall will mean a "real" cut of nearly £40 billion in spending over three years. It comes amid speculation, played down heavily by Treasury officials, that the chancellor will introduce a windfall tax to curb bank bonuses in his pre-budget report on Wednesday.
6. Load of old Rashid - Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum could be about to default personally, The Australian reports.
Fears are growing among Western banks that Dubai Holding, the personal investment vehicle of the emirate's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, will be the next state-owned Dubai company to default. The conglomerate went on a debt-fuelled spending spree in the past decade, borrowing $US12 billion ($13bn) to fund ambitious projects in Dubai and to create a private equity arm that bought stakes in Tussauds and budget hotel chain Travelodge.
7. North Korean chaos - This one seems to have slipped under everyone's radar in the last week. The Washington Post is reporting that North Korea revalued its currency and wiped out the savings of many middle class traders. Chaos erupted. HT Greg Elliott via email.
The revaluation and exchange limits triggered panic and anger, particularly among market traders with substantial hoards of old North Korean won -- much of which has apparently become worthless, according to news agency reports from South Korea and China and from groups with contacts in North Korea. The currency move appeared to be part of a continuing government crackdown on private markets, which have become an essential part of the food-supply system in the chronically hungry North. In recent years, some market traders have stashed away substantial amounts of cash, while establishing themselves in profitable businesses that the government struggles to control. But under the rules of the new currency system, the wealth of these traders has largely disappeared, unless it is held in euros, dollars or Chinese yuan. The revaluation replaces 1,000-won notes with 10-won notes but strictly limits the amount of old currency that can be exchanged, news reports said.
8. DeMint vs The Mint - This is compelling viewing from the renomination hearings of US Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke in the Senate. It is a series of statements from Republican Senator Jim DeMint and a few questions and answers between DeMint and Bernanke. Helicopter Ben will probably be renominated, but his credibility is shot. 9. Bunning vs Bernanke - This too is worth watching. Bernanke will probably be reappointed but he is not unscathed. There is talk a couple of senators on the committee may vote against him. Here's a few choice quotes. HT Mish.
You are repeating the same mistakes as Japan in the 1990's on a much larger scale while sowing the seeds for the next bubble. The AIG bailout alone is reason enough to send you back to Princeton. I will do everything I can to stop your nomination and drag out this process as long as I can. We must put an end to your and the Fed's failure and there is no better time than now. Your Fed has become the creature from Jekyll Island.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
10. Totally irrelevant video - Here's what people will think of the Beatles in the year 3000. Not very accurate. And sort of painful... HT Rob Pharazyn
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