* John Carney: Black swans and muni bonds
* Susanne Craig: Deutsche Bank’s $4 billion Vegas bet
* James Fallows: “S&P knows nothing more about U.S. budget prospects than you or I do. They’re saying they have an opinion on the state of Congressional-White house dealings on the budget. Fine. Go on a talk show or start a blog.”
* Morning Call: U.S. futures look flat, London opens strong, European shares boosted by earnings and the Nikkei hits a 3-week low.
* Tim Draper buys… a hotel?
* Ronald Kahn: Mezzanine is (again) at a crossroads
* Chris Isidore: How Donald Trump could incite a trade war
* Mercer: The risks and rewards of investing in climate change
* Felix Salmon: More on SharesPost, Dennis Berman, ethics and dear departed grandma
* Translation troubles: Can banks freeze Gadhafi’s assets when they can’t agree on how to spell Gadhafi?
* Reuters: U.S. Treasury could sell “significant portion” of its remaining 33% stake in General Motors (GM).
* Tweet of the Day: @LaMonicaBuzz I’ll take unprofitable Web companies beginning with the letter Z for $800, Alex. First Zipcar ($ZIP). Now real estate site Zillow files S-1.
* Tweet of the Day II (on Twitter trying to buy Tweetdeck for $50m): @mattcharris it’s just like Twitter to get into a bidding war on a property they could shut down at will, against a company they did shut down at will.
* Related: 5 reasons why Twitter will kill Tweetdeck