Bondholders Put On Speed Dial (WSJ)
At Wall Street giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the quarterly earnings calls for stock analysts tend to get most of the attention. But another kind of call, this one for bondholders, is moving to the fore. The New York securities firms this summer for the first time held conference calls targeting fixed-income investors. Morgan Stanley and Goldman are seeking out new buyers for their debt in an effort to lower interest rates that are now higher than what industrial companies pay.

Investors Expect Libor To Be Replaced Within Five Years (Bloomberg)
Forty-four percent of those responding to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll said the London interbank offered rate, known as Libor, will be supplanted by a more regulated model within five years. Thirty-four percent predicted the rate will continue to be set by banks in the current fashion, while 22 percent said they didn’t know.

Greek Decline Sharper Than Expected (WSJ)
Greek gross domestic product contracted 6.3% on the year in the second quarter. That is a revision from the 6.2% drop reported in the provisional estimate last month and compares with a 6.5% fall in the first quarter and a contraction of 7.3% in the second quarter of 2011.

Jobless Greeks Resolved to Work Clean Toilets in Sweden (Bloomberg)
As a pharmaceutical salesman in Greece for 17 years, Tilemachos Karachalios wore a suit, drove a company car and had an expense account. He now mops schools in Sweden, forced from his home by Greece’s economic crisis. “It was a very good job,” said Karachalios, 40, of his former life. “Now I clean Swedish s—.” Karachalios, who left behind his six-year-old daughter to be raised by his parents, is one of thousands fleeing Greece’s record 24 percent unemployment and austerity measures that threaten to undermine growth. The number of Greeks seeking permission to settle in Sweden, where there are more jobs and a stable economy, almost doubled to 1,093 last year from 2010, and is on pace to increase again this year. “I’m trying to survive,” Karachalios said in an interview in Stockholm. “It’s difficult here, very difficult. I would prefer to stay in Greece. But we don’t have jobs.”

Private Equity Tests Pension Funds Patience (WSJ)
A new report by a consultant to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, shows that returns from large U.S. buyout funds are lagging behind many of the pension’s internal benchmarks.

Vladimir Putin Muses On The Benefits Of Group Sex (Telegraph)
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has mused that group sex is better than one-on-one intercourse because participants can take a break. Mr. Putin made the observation on Thursday in his first interview since his inauguration in May, with the Kremlin-controlled, English-language RT television channel. “Some fans of group sex say that it’s better than one-on-one because, as with any collective work, you can skive off,” he said. The comment came after the Russian leader had spoken about an orgy that was staged in Moscow’s state biology museum in 2008 which involved Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, one of three feminist activists of the Pu**y Riot group who were jailed for two years for hooliganism last month after a politically charged trial. Read more »