Does being public give Blackstone Group (BX) an advantage over its rivals? (via breakingviews/WSJ.com)

Andrew Ross Sorkin at NYTimes.com on how the credit crisis might affect activist investors going forward.

Andrew Batson at WSJ.com on just how one might go about shorting China.

We have always thought muni bonds get underplayed in the press. Shefali Anand and Jane J. Kim at WSJ.com look at the state of the muni bond market.

Mark Hulbert at NYTimes.com on research showing a convergence in returns among (seemingly) disparate hedge fund strategies.

Alistair Barr at Marketwatch.com on how the hedge fund crisis affected the muni market.

Accrued Interest looks behind the strategy of Annaly Capital Management (NLY).

Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture ask “Are we in recovery mode?”

David Merkel at the Aleph Blog has sixteen real estate/mortgage related thoughts.

Is Wall Street getting ahead of itself expecting a September rate cut? (via DealBreaker.com)

Robert J. Shiller at NYTimes.com writes “Booms cannot go on forever. Downward price feedback sets in. That is when balance sheets become impaired and widening credit problems start to show up.”

Yves Smith at naked capitalism writes “..the Fed’s actions hadn’t solved the CP problem.”

James Hamilton at Econbrowser thinks it will be “..difficult to expect today’s good news on home sales and capital goods orders to be repeated next month.”

Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed on just how getting a Ph.D. is a roundabout way of “..to discover what you want in life…”

Free exchange on the surprising value of a (literal) “free lunch.”

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