Various links

Advisor Perspectives

On interest rates

Inexpensive Protection Against Rising Rates

Likely best for hedging a long bond portfolio, but could be interesting tool against a portfolio of long dividend payers.

A need for rule sets

It’s Complicated - Making Sense of Complexity - NYTimes.com:

"a distinction between the complicated and the complex."

Euro-skepticism

Op-Ed Contributor - The Euro’s Lost Promise - NYTimes.com:

"The dream of monetary union across Europe has turned into a nightmare. Led by France and Germany, European countries have decided to spend colossal sums of taxpayers’ money they cannot afford to heal mounting internal disparities they cannot conceal to shore up an edifice many believe cannot stand."

Doom

Greece—US Faces Same Economic Woes As Greece: Marc Faber - CNBC:

"'Many people haven't woken up to the severity of the US fiscal crisis,' Faber said by phone. 'The only difference for the US from Greece is that it can print more money.'

Faber said that most western countries as well as the US cannot pay for unfunded liabilities and that more sovereign defaults will happen in the future."

and

EU Debt Crisis - Government Expanded 'Like a Cancer': Marc Faber - CNBC:

"Governments have intervened too much in free markets since the crisis started, to the point that they are affecting the health of the world economy, Marc Faber, the author of 'The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report' told CNBC ..."

Similar thoughts here

By Jeff Gundlach "The US will Politely Default on its Debt."

More:

The Keynesian Dead End - WSJ.com:

"For going on three years, the developed world's economic policy has been dominated by the revival of the old idea that vast amounts of public spending could prevent deflation, cure a recession, and ignite a new era of government-led prosperity. It hasn't turned out that way."

Then we have taxes

The Obama Tax Trap - WSJ.com:

"''Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I'm calling their bluff.'

That was President Barack Obama, the heretofore unknown deficit hawk, all but announcing the other day the tax trap that he's been laying for Republicans. From what we hear about intra-GOP debates, more than a few will be happy to walk right into it."