Felix Salmon

This is just a sample of the curation available today on Counterparties.com. Please give it a look, if you haven’t already.

The mystery of US banks’ huge second lien mortgage problem — FT Alphaville

Facing a recovery with little investment, innovation, or business growth — NYT

Paulson’s gold fund is down 16.4% in September alone — WSJ

Short-selling is at its highest rate in five years, despite the very low equity valuations — Bloomberg

Some at pension funds admit that their return assumptions might be a bit unrealistic — WSJ

The debt ceiling standoff might have had the highest policy uncertainty in the last 25 years — Modeled Behavior

Here’s Nobel economics laureate Chris Sims’s web page — Princeton

Tyler Cowen on the other Nobel laureate, NYU’s Tom Sargent — Marginal Revolution

How Tom Sargent was lured to NYU nine years ago — NYT Magazine

Groupon’s being “transparent about our lack of transparency” — Groupon Blog

Apple has sold more than one million iPhones 4S in one day — AllThingsD

“I’m the only working class person you’ll see on Sunday news… maybe ever” — NY Observer

And an Italian Cabinet member thinks market volatility could be the result of stock traders’ cocaine use — Businessweek