The Morning Journal-Tuesday morning humor

News on Stocks in Our Portfolios—courtesy Seeking Alpha

02:19 PM Medtronic (MDT -1.8%) trades lower after the company said late Friday that it sees no advantage in spinning off its spine business, a division that has weighed on growth for some time. Comment!

02:03 PM Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA -3.2%) dips after the U.S. Supreme Court says it won't consider its challenge to Merck's (MRK -0.4%) patent for the brain-cancer drug Temodar. Comment!

01:00 PM Charles Schwab (SCHW) is reportedly mulling a bid for MF Global's (MF) retail futures segment. MF would also like to offload its institutional clearing business, but that may prove challenging given that most institutional asset managers have already moved their business elsewhere. Comment!


11:21 AM AT&T (T) plans to begin selling its first 4G LTE phones on Sunday, with one of the two devices a 4G variant of Samsung's Galaxy S II. The phones will allow AT&T to catch up a bit to Verizon (VZ, VOD), which began offering LTE phones earlier this year. But Verizon still has a big lead in LTE network coverage. Comment!

Economics

This Week’s Data

The October Chicago PMI came in at 58.4 versus expectations of 59.8 and September’s reading of 60.4.

Other

Could the US become Japan 2.0--from Mohamed El Erian (medium):
http://blogs.reuters.com/mohamed-el-erian/2011/10/31/could-america-turn-out-worse-than-japan-2/

Only if Europe doesn’t beat us to the punch (medium):
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/europe%E2%80%99s-economy-is-falling-apart.html

The restaurant performance index is improving (short(:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/10/restaurant-performance-index-improves.html

The latest from John Hussman (medium):
http://advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/hussman_103111.php

Bank lending and money supply (medium):
http://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2011/10/bank-lending-and-money-supply-update.html

Politics

Domestic

Here is another example of what is wrong with our education system (short):
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/28/the-bloated-rise-of-the-diversitocracy/


International

Tuesday morning humor and today’s must read:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/europe-according