Your morning financial links, expertly curated.

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Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students.

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One of my fave bloggers, Cassandra Does Tokyo, has a few (ten) requests for Santa Claus this year – I suppose it’s never too early in the season to begin compiling such a list these days.

“In our global multi-asset class, we have taken our precious metal positions to 6% of the total deployment. That is very, very high and it is a considerable overweight for us.”

My pal James Altucher has an anthology of recent q&a stuff he’s done on Twitter. One “caller” asked him about the best way to succeed in financial journalism, here are his rules:

Lost amid all the insane rhetoric coming out Michelle Bachmann’s mouth since her rise to prominence (sample: “Gay marriage is the single biggest issue facing this nation today“) is a very important glimmer of common sense when it comes to tax policy.  Bachmann’s idea is for a flatter (not exactly flat) tax that simplifies the…

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