Saturday Morning Links, News & Views

WSJ Links

Wow, what a great way to start! The travel section in Section D (Off Duty) has an article on "truly novel bookstores" around the world. And the very last one highlighted, is the largest, and it is in Los Angeles where I just happen to be for a couple of weeks. 

Christie's puts ten (10) products from Apple's history, including an Apple 1, Apple SE and Apple Lisa, on the auction block.

An end to another column in Review; this is very sad. Matt Ridley has written his last "Mind and Matter" column, and it's a good one. I may re-post it as a stand-alone post.

Not much in Business & Finance today; just this one article: Apple and Samsung: some phones are smarter than others.

Lead story in the Front Section has a headline that surprises me: job gains show staying power. Considering it's a WSJ article, it's a pretty shallow analysis.

The violence is spreading in Egypt; stories everywhere, no links necessary. By the way, whatever happened to Syria. Will the Egyptian story be on the front page two weeks from now?

The strike in San Francisco is over, but the bargaining is not. The union and the transit agency are still working on the new contract.

Update on the Detroit "bankruptcy" or whatever it's being called: the city sues a bond insurer amid an effort to reach deal with creditors.

In the latest move, the city sued Syncora Guarantee Inc., a bond insurer, over access to the city's casino tax revenue, estimated at $170 million a year. The city claims Syncora improperly told a bank controlling the funds to keep the money from Detroit.

The city sees the insurer as a roadblock to a proposed deal to pay UBS AG and Bank of America Merrill Lynch more than 70 cents on the dollar on nearly $340 million in secured debt, according to people familiar with the matter. In exchange, the city would get back $11 million a month in tax revenue from the city's three casinos originally used as collateral to back the debt.

The pending deal would be the first time one of the city's creditors has agreed to new terms since Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr took office in March. Mr. Orr may have a tougher time reaching agreement with the city's unsecured creditors, who he has offered roughly 10 cents on the dollar.

In the middle are insurers like Syncora trying to recoup as much as they can of what the city owes. The insurer is concerned it may have to make up the difference between what the city is willing to pay its secured creditors and the amount originally owed by the city, a person familiar with the matter said. 

Meanwhile, China is taking a tough line with the EU on solar-panel tariffs.

Op-Ed. With the economy improving in many states, these same states are back to spending levels that got them in trouble in the first place:

Oil-rich North Dakota is also celebrating Christmas early. The Republican legislature and Gov. Jack Dalrymple approved budgets this spring for the next two years that pump up spending by more than 50%. The budget finances a massive expansion of Medicaid and pork projects, such as the purchase of a marina at a state park. "It's hard to imagine Democrats would have spent this much," laments Rob Port, the state's top taxpayer watchdog and creator of the popular political blog, Say Anything.