peHUB First Read

* For most cities, recession has arrived.

* Could Huntsman end up buying Hexion?

* What us worry, we’re Australian? Kedrosky gives some cause.

* If Halloweeen mask sales could predict the election, Obama would be president.

* There’s been lots of talk about how private equity firms might ride to the banking sector’s rescue, with Chris Flowers regularly mentioned as a leading candidate for white knight. Hopefully those future deals perform better than Flowers’ past ones, which have been marked down by 30 percent.

* Facebook co-founders depart. Maybe they just didn’t like the new design…

* Massachusetts has better basketball and baseball teams than they do in California, but our requested federal loan just does not stack up.

* Jim Cramer: Preventing The Great Depression, Part Deux.

* Last month, I sent an email to John Cook of the Seattle P-I, letting him know about the peHUB Shindig in the Emerald City. But he never wrote back. I thought he just being uncharacteristically dismissive, but it turns out he’s left the P-I to launch a new site for the Pugent Sound Business Journal. Hope it launches soon, because no one covers that region’s VC market like John…

* Joseph Stiglitz on economic alchemy: