Thursday's Top 10 with NZ Mint: France and Germany openly contemplate Euro breakup; Rick Perry's live brain implosion; Why the rich are lucky rather than deserving; The Economist's elegant gloat; Dilbert

Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 8 pm in association with NZ Mint.

I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email tobernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.

I'll pop the extras into the comment stream. See all previous Top 10s here.

This is going to be a jury-rigged version tonight. I've been travelling from Wellington and am buggered. Shortish and sharpish. All hell breaking loose way ooop north.

1. Euro breakup now being talked about by Germany and France - Reuters reports the core of Europe is thinking the unthinkable.

When this stuff is talked about in public then you know the game is over.

The blowup in the European debt markets overnight was momentous.

Now it's a matter of working out who will remain in the club and what the exits might look like.

It might take years for the Euro to breakup.

Or months.

Or worse. Check out the last quote.

Here's Reuters.

German and French officials have discussed plans for a radical overhaul of the European Union that would involve setting up a more integrated and potentially smaller euro zone, EU sources say.

"France and Germany have had intense consultations on this issue over the last months, at all levels," a senior EU official in Brussels told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

The change has been discussed on an "intellectual" level but had not moved to operational or technical discussions, the EU official said. A French finance ministry spokesman denied there was any project in the works to reduce the currency bloc's membership .

"There have been no conversations between French and German authorities at any level on decreasing the size of the euro zone," the spokesman said .

A radical overhaul of the European Union would be opposed by many members.

"This will unravel everything our forebears have painstakingly built up and repudiate all that they stood for in the past sixty years," one EU diplomat told Reuters."This will redraw the map geopolitically and give rise to new tensions. It could truly be the end of Europe as we know it."

2.And Greece remains a complete mess - It no longer has a Prime Minister but can't agree on a new one.

Here's the WSJ with the latest debacle of the day from Athens:

Greek politicians' quest to name an interim prime minister to guide the country through deep and painful budget cuts ended Wednesday as it had the day before, and the day before: With no new government announced, and meetings planned for tomorrow.

After the country's two main parties failed to agree Wednesday on who will lead an interim government, Greek President Karolos Papoulias called a meeting of political leaders for Thursday, dashing hopes that an end to Greece's weeklong political crisis was at hand.

"These latest developments are very embarrassing for Greece abroad. It could not be worse the way it has been handled," said Anthony Livanios, an independent political analyst. "It's a tragedy."

3. The Economist says I told you so in a very elegant fashion - Here's a lineup of front pages from The Economist that have campaigned against Silvio Berlusconi for over a decade. T

he former cruise ship crooner even once sued the Economist for defamation (and lost) after it said he wasn't fit to govern Italy. That was in 2001.

Nyahh Nyahh Nya Nya Nayaaaaa

4. I wonder if John Key has read this - Here's George Monbiot at the Guardian musing on why the very rich (in particular investment bankers) think they deserve it.

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren't responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. "The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill." Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

5. Why governments usually get ripped off when selling assets - Here's Rob Salmond at Pundit musing on this subject.

Governments are bad negotiators, because democracy demands they tip their hand before going to the bargaining table. That means governments get the short end of asset sale deals

Asset-selling governments publicly showcase their almost giddy excitement at the prospect of selling up, portraying themselves as overly eager sellers. That brings unfairly low prices for governments and, through them, for everyone.

6. Oil price at US$176/bbl by 2015 - That's what the International Energy Agency (who should know) is forecasting here, via The Telegraph.

Oh and by the way, the IEA is also a tad worried about climate change.  

"In 2011, $102 is the average price through to today, which means the global economic recovery is at risk," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. "We are in the danger zone for the global economy at current levels.

"Oil prices by 2015 may go to $150 in real terms and $176 in nominal terms [if investment is too low]."

He also warned that nations have just five years to stop "the door closing" on keeping temperatures from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, the limit set in the Copenhagen Accord. Without further action, by 2017 the limit of carbon emissions consistent with achieving that goal will have been "locked in" by existing power plants, factories and buildings. On current trends, "rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change".

It expects the world's global energy use to grow by 36pc by 2035, with China accounting for almost all of the increase. The world will have to develop the equivalent of "two Middle Easts" just to keep oil production steady, the IEA said.   

7. American bankers are worried about cash withdrawals - Barry Ritholz at The Big Picture pulls together a few anecdotes about the growing November 5 movement by many Americans to pull their money out of Too Big To Fail banks and put it into credit unions.

Even though the government may keep throwing money at the dinosaurs, the Basel regulations do have some capital requirements, and so the big banks need to bring in some actual deposits to fund their casino gambling.

Moreover, if too many depositors leave, the illusion that the big banks are serving the American public will be burst, and a critical mass of consciousness will occur, so that the banks’ questioned control over the American political and financial systems will start to be questioned.

8. Chinese exports slowing - Here's the BBC report.Worth reminding ourselves we're dependent on China continuing to fire on all cylinders.

The data has raised fresh concerns about the impact of a global slowdown on China's export-led growth.

"Export growth continued to drop last month against the backdrop of a sputtering economy in European countries, which is the largest export destination of our country," said Wang Hu of Guotai Securities in Shanghai.

"With the euro debt crisis spreading, we expect export growth to further decline in the months ahead."

And letters of credit from European banks for exports to China are drying up - Here's the WSJ

Europe may be looking to China for help out of its financial crisis, but the Chinese themselves could do with some help from Europe.

Chinese commodity importers are feeling the impact of a European credit crunch. European banks are becoming ever more reticent to provide trade finance, such as letters of credit, according to a leading executive at one of the world’s top mining companies.

Chinese commodity buyers often now have to source lending to finance shipments from more than one bank, raising their trading costs. The issue is crucial because, as the executive explains, his company is only prepared to accept letters of credit in Chinese companies’ favor from Western banks.

9. This is entertaining - Rich Perry's US Presidential election campaign implodes on live national television. A small hole opened up in his brain.

10. Totally relevant video of what panic looks like. HT AndrewJ