READING FOR THE WEEKEND

Barack Obama, Gun Salesman of the Year (Bloomberg).

For the bedwetters out there ... Calm down, you're much more likely to die choking on your own vomit than in a terrorist attack (Washington Post Blog via Barry Ritholtz)

Dick Cheney (finally) sees the light ... Picking Palin was a mistake, McCain responds by playing the torture card (The National Memo).

A look at North Korea's missile stockpile (The National Memo).

Meet the new $100 bill, the world's most popular bank note (Quartz).

Hackers empty $900,000 bank account (Bankrate.com).

Barry Ritholtz does a good job of explaining the importance of Twitter to society and markets (The Big Picture).

Republican representatives are starting to see the real world effects of the sequester they voted for (The National Memo).

Public pensions on the mend? (Bankrate.com)

The graduate student who exposed the errors in the ideologically tinged Reinhart-Rogoff austerity paper ... Reinhart-Rogoff still can't get their facts straight (Quartz).

Refereeing the Reinhart-Rogoff debate (Bloomberg), plus the risks of spending and debt (Brad DeLong).


FOR THE HISTORY BUFFS
America's 99-Year War Against Terrorist Bombers (Bloomberg Echoes).

When FDR ditched the gold standard (Bloomberg Echoes).

A brief history of applause ... the "big data" of the ancient world (Atlantic).

Why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels turned towards Russia ... they didn't understand the political nuances and possibilities of democracy, which made their understanding of economics and society rather rigid (Brad DeLong)


WHY IT WILL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN (again)
Influential economist says Wall Street's full of 'crook's' (New York Post) ... in a related story, jails are full of criminals.

Everything is rigged, the biggest price-fixing scandal ever (Rolling Stone / Matt Taibbi).

FDIC Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee member makes it clear ... Not only is our financial narrative wrong, but the world is in trouble if [when] the global megabanks fail (Project Syndicate).

Finally ... 22 facts that prove the bottom 90% are getting systematically poorer (The Economic Collapse Blog, via Zero Hedge)

- Mark