Private equity execs are having difficulties amassing allies in their fight against additional taxation and regulation. (via WSJ.com & DealBook)

Justin Fox at the Curious Capitalist scoffs at their “lame arguments.”

Bernanke on inflation, some pushback against an official inflation target, and an alternative measure of inflation . (Big Picture & Real Time Economics)

Mark Zandi on housing prices, “The low end is getting creamed. The middle is struggling. The high end is running on its own dynamic.” (via NYTimes.com)

Abnormal Returns on credit market stress and rising risk aversion.

Matthew Lynn at Bloomberg.com, “In reality, hedge funds and banks are a combustible mixture.”

Dow Jones (DJ) is talking with a motley crew of alternative bidders to Rupert Murdoch. (via WSJ.com)

Are Alt-A loans the new home of subprime? (via Calculated Risk)

John Carney at DealBreaker.com on the challenges of trying to piggyback a hedge fund on top of a couple of lousy retailers.

Mebane Faber at World Beta, “When the best hedge fund on the planet decides to launch a new fund, it bears watching.”

Is there fee pressure on hedge funds, or not? (via All About Alpha)

What effect does the value of the U.S. dollar have on large capitalization stocks? (via CXO Advisory Group)

Bond ETFs are outnumbered 20:1 by equity ETFs. (via WSJ.com)

VMWare is the next big hot IPO coming down the pike. (via TheStreet.com)

Chris Perruna on why YOU are far more important to your trading success than your “wonderful trading system.”

Teresa Lo at PowerSwings.com on the ill-considered “…veritable industry built around market prognostication.”

Going Private analyzes the “suboptimal return” from writing a blog and notes a great remedy.

Greg Newton at NakedShorts on the dangers of ‘cut and paste’ in the production of a prospectus.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser on a more pessimistic outlook for oil supplies over the next half decade.

An energy-constrained Argentina is making nice with energy companies. (via Market Movers)

Five business lessons from Costco (COST). (via 37signals.com)

Michelle Leder at footnoted.org is giving up on the iPhone.

Jason Chow at the Globe & Mail with a behind-the-scenes look at Wallstrip which is “no CNBC.”

Om Malik at GigaOM.com on the face-off between MySpace and the (much speculated about) Facebook.

Tim Harford at Slate.com on whether the political futures markets can be manipulated.

A shortage of ash wood is making some major league baseball players very nervous. (via NYTimes.com)

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