An existential question…

the rundown of corporate cash statistics from Merrill Lynch’s David Bianco and Goldman Sachs’s David Kostin.

Ad dollars go where the consumers go, tale as old as time.

In polls, as in real life, the profligate spender wants to convince himself and others that he is miserly, the most reckless wish to outwardly convey a sense of prudence, and so on.

If it looks like a fraud and it quacks like a fraud…

How the blogosphere feels about whether or not gold is a bubble.

All the links you need this morning.

8 ideas for last-minute shoppers.

Protoblogger Eddy Elfenbein does a really fantastic job of articulating the reasons why he adds stocks to his buy list and then following through with updates and commentary on a consistent basis. In fact, I don’t know of any blogger who does this better.

Morgan Stanley’s fixed income department got the bond market wrong twice this year – a phenomenal accomplishment even for a wirehouse.