Top 10 at 10: Norris hints Aussie bank may pull out of NZ; Geithner's expletives deleted; China's dud GDP figures; Dilbert

Here's my top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments in the comments below and please send any suggestions for Thursday's Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz .We don't have sales reps at interest.co.nz and we like to filter in the accuracy... 1. Fran O'Sullivan at NZHerald has reported comments from CBA CEO (Sir) Ralph Norris at at Business Roundtable dinner on Monday night about how an Australian bank could pull out of New Zealand over the longer term. I frankly don't think the Australian banks are serious with these sorts of threats. We're much more profitable than anything they could do with the money right now. ANZ might be having a go in Asia, but we're much safer and generate much more cash.

In Auckland briefly this week to address the Business Roundtable's annual Dunes Symposium, Norris was asked to do a bit of crystal ball gazing about the future of banking in this country some five years out. The Commonwealth Bank chief executive's reply was instructive: Paying tribute to Kiwibank ("No doubt it has played its hand very well - nothing like a bit of xenophobia against the common enemy") he went on to say that "some of the Australian banks have seriously considered whether they should continue in this market - there are opportunities elsewhere". After weeks of Opposition politicians beating the drum over a need for a banking inquiry to essentially prove their belief that "Aussie bankers are bastards - and are price gouging their customers" it was refreshing to hear a major banker tell it straight: Strong banks are absolutely critical to the strength of the economy.

2. Moody's has downgraded ABN Amro's rating to Aa3 from Aa2, citing worries about its move to Dutch government ownership and problems in Europe, Reuters reported briefly. We have more detail below. No wonder they have no interest in NZ anymore. Europe will be the place to watch for landmines in the global financial system over the next couple of months.

The rating action reflects Moody's view that the current ratings are no longer consistent with either the bank's current financial condition or the likely future financial profile of either of the banks resulting from ABN AMRO's pending demerger. "We believe that ABN AMRO's core earnings profile has weakened over the past year because of lower interest margins in its Dutch banking activities, structured-asset impairments in its wholesale banking operations, and the redirection of a portion of its wholesale business to Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS)," said Senior Vice President David Fanger. Although a part of those losses have been offset by one-time gains on the sale of businesses to Banco Santander, Moody's does not expect those gains to benefit ABN AMRO's creditors because they constitute capital still owed to Banco Santander under the Consortium shareholders' agreement. Moody's also believes that this weakened earnings profile is likely to endure for a while because of the challenging economic climate and the bank's exposure to legacy structured assets.

3. Britain's nationalised mortgage bank Northern Rock has posted another huge loss, The Telegraph reported. Again, Europe is the danger zone.

The nationalised bank also confirmed that is in breach of its regulatory requirements but that the Financial Services Authority "does not currently intend to restrict the activities of the Company while the legal and capital restructuring is completed". Its core tier one capital "“ the key measure of financial strength "“ is -£794m. It would need core tier one capital of £2bn to be in line with the FSA's current requirement for a ratio of about 8pc. The specialist mortgage is splitting into a "good bank" and a "bad bank" under its planned restructuring and stressed yesterday that it would not require any more than the £3bn of capital from the taxpayer already earmarked.

4&5. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who should have been sacked long ago for being asleep at the wheel before the credit crunch, is losing it. In a closed door meeting this week with senior regulators he launched into an 'expletive-filled' tirade against opponents of his regulatory reforms, the Wall St Journal reported. Those opponents include FDIC chair Sheila Bair, who has done a much better job through the crisis, but who Geithner has tried to force out. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was at the same meeting.  Max Fisher at TheAtlanticWire has a nice summary of where the blogosphere lines up in this battle. I'm with Bair and against Geithner every day of the week. 6. The Securities and Exchange Commission will move to ban flash trades, according to a senior Senator Charles Schumer, Bloomberg reported. A victory for financial blogger Tyler Durden.

A ban would reverse decisions since at least 2004, when the SEC first approved the systems at the Boston Options Exchange. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., Bats Global Markets, Direct Edge Holdings LLC and the CBOE Stock Exchange give information to their clients about orders for a fraction of a second before the trades are routed to rival platforms. The technique is meant to give investors another opportunity to complete a transaction. Schumer told the SEC in a July 24 letter to halt flash orders, saying he would propose legislation barring them if the agency didn't act. NYSE Euronext, the world's largest owner of stock exchanges, as well as brokerages Morgan Stanley and Getco LLC have said the practice may result in investors getting worse prices.

7. Here's Peter Schiff in this video on the US dollar's fall to a one year low overnight. He, not surprisingly for him, reckons the worst is yet to come. "There's a good chance by fall that we'll be below 70 on the dollar index (from 78 now) and this will be the next leg of this economic crisis," he says. 8. There are now questions about just how strong the Chinese economic rebound is, the FT reported.

China's gross domestic product figures are among the world's most closely watched since they can move markets or boost hopes of an imminent recovery. But the latest set of first-half numbers provided by provincial-level authorities are far higher than the central government's national figure, raising fresh questions about the accuracy of statistics in the world's most populous nation. With the rest of the world looking to China as a beacon of expansion, the discrepancy is a reminder that statistics there are often unreliable and manipulated regularly by officials for personal and political purposes. In recent years, provincial figures have suggested consistently the world's third-largest economy is bigger than Beijing's published estimate, but the discrepancy appears to have widened this year. Even state-controlled media reports and editorials have in recent days raised questions over their accuracy. The Global Times, controlled by the People's Daily, the Communist party mouthpiece, reported that the public reacted with "banter and sarcasm" to NBS figures showing average urban wages in China rose 13 per cent in the first half to US$2,142. It quoted an online poll showing 88 per cent of respondents doubted the official numbers.

9. Remember Jefferson County in Alabama? It was the town council that got horribly burnt borrowing in the interest rate swaps market last year and couldn't afford to run its sewerage system. Well now it is about to file for bankruptcy and has stopped paying its police and 1,000 public workers. This is so serious the sheriff in the county may call in the National Guard to preserve public order, Tyler Durden points out. It's been a while since people talked about public order issues in this latest crisis. Police not being paid will do it. Sounds like some tinpot African country. Here's Tyler's take.

Ok, but what happens when the National Guard goes bankrupt in a few months once every other county realizes it needs it too? Can they call in the Goldman reservists? Do these stupid mayors understand that Goldman reservists do not like to be paid with IOUs? Once Joe Sixpack is busy fending off the vigilantes (real ones, not the bond variety) and has no time to heatmap his daily quota of REITs, the real question becomes what HAL9000 will do once it has no more retail players left to frontrun...

10. This video from TheOnion has news of a very cunning plan to remove America's massive debt: stage a fake coup. A real giggle. HT Alex U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt