• The Treasury is expected to announce in the next few days that it will be extending bailout funds to a handful of life insurance companies. [WSJ]
• Brian Moynihan, who took over Merrill Lynch after John Thain was ousted, is emerging as a potential successor to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• Not that Lewis necessarily needs to be replaced, at least according to Meredith Whitney, who (bizarrely) says Lewis has "done a great job." [BN]
• Blackstone, KKR, and Carlyle are in the running to acquire the mobile phone operations that Verizon Wireless is selling now that it's acquired Alltel. [BN]
• Looks like Jim Cramer has a new enemy. Nouriel Roubini is calling the CNBC star "a buffoon," and Cramer has since responded in kind, of course. [NYP]

• The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, after a total of 663,000 jobs were eliminated. [NYP, BN]
• At the G-20 summit in London. world leaders agreed to pump $1 trillion into the world economy to help bail out developing countries. [NYT]
• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis says it may take a few quarters to pay bank the $45 billion it received in bailout money. Also: He says Countrywide and Merrill "will prove to be two of the best acquisitions we've ever made" [DB]
• Related: Another top Merrill banker is ditching the firm. [WSJ]
• It appears it's the end of the line for Daniel Zwirn's hedge fund. [DB]
• Hedge fund managers are paying more attention to customers after sustaining heavy losses. So they're, like, wearing ties to work and stuff. [BN]
• A Florida accountant became the first U.S citizen to be arrested as part of the investigation into Americans who hid assets with help from UBS. [AP]
• This can't bode well: American Airlines is in talks to raise cash from its credit card partner, Citigroup, by selling frequent flyer miles. [Reuters]
• It's not as fun being on top these days: The median salaries and bonuses for the CEOs of 200 big companies fell 8.5% to $2.24 million in '08. [WSJ]

• Washington is now playing hard ball: The Obama administration has forced out GM CEO Rick Wagoner and now says the company has 30 days to finalize its alliance with Fiat if it expects to get more bailout cash. [NYT, WSJ]
• UBS plans to lay off as many as 8,000 more employees worldwide. [Reuters]
• Working at Goldman Sachs has its perks: The bank spent tens of millions bailing out several senior execs facing a personal liquidity squeeze, including former COO Jon Winkelried and general counsel Gregory Palm. [NYT]
• Bank of America plans to increase some bankers' salaries by as much as 70 percent to offset reduced year-end bonuses. [BN]
• The Blackstone Group turned down a request from regulators to disclose the performance of its buyout and hedge funds; Fortress, however, caved. [BN]
• Timothy Geithner says some financial institutions will still need a lot more government aid in the future. You're stunned by that, we're sure. [BN]

• President Obama will meet with 15 big banking CEOs in Washington today, including Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. Obama plans to "quiz" them "about developments in the economy and their businesses." Sounds like fun. [CNN]
• Hedge fund managers can expect a lot more oversight in the future, which isn't something they're too excited about, not surprisingly. [Reuters, NYP]
• Andrew Cuomo says he now plans to widen his investigation of AIG. [DB]
• Many of the AIG execs charged with preventing the insurance giant from taking on too much risk still have jobs at the company for some reason. [WSJ]
• The exodus of Merrill bankers from Bank of America continues. [DJ, DB]
• Swiss private banks are banning top execs from traveling abroad for fear they will be detained as part of a crackdown on bank secrecy. [Reuters]
• Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing says it's time to start buying stocks and real estate again. Make of that what you will. [NYT]

A decade ago, Fortune pegged CNET founder Halsey Minor's net worth at $354 million. Today he's fending off lawsuits seeking $60 million. Has he run out of money?

• Yesterday the House approved a 90% tax on bonuses paid to execs at certain firms that received government aid. Now some lawmakers are talking about banning all bonus payments at bailed-out firms. [Reuters]
• It's unclear if the 90% tax will hold up in court. It's also possible it will do more harm than good and ultimately "wreck what's left of our economy." [BI]
• Andrew Cuomo says AIG has provided him with a list of employees who earned bonuses, but he won't release the names until the security situation has been sorted out, which is good news since it's getting a little rough out there what with all the death threats and protests. [AP, NYT, Reuters]
• Just who knew about the AIG bonuses—and when they knew it—is being closely scrutinized, although Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says he is prepared to accept full responsibility. [NYT, CNN]

• Andrew Cuomo has won the battle to force Bank of America to turn over the names of the 200 Merrill employees who earned the largest bonuses right before the firm was acquired. He says he'll release the info today. [CNN, NYT]
• As you can probably imagine, it's been "the worst week in a string of bad weeks" for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. [NYT]
• Of course, it's also been a pretty lousy few days for AIG chief Ed Liddy, who walked into this big mess when he took the top job last September. [NYT]
• A record number of hedge funds were forced to close up shop last year: About 1,471 hedge funds were liquidated in 2008. [NYP, DB]
• The Fed plans to buy $300 billion of long-term Treasuries and hundreds of billions of dollars more in mortgage-backed securities. [BN, WSJ]
• JPMorgan reports the bank's CEO, Jamie Dimon, earned about $19.7 million in total compensation for 2008. And how did you do last year? [Reuters]
• Citigroup has canceled its order to buy three new jets. [Dealbreaker]

Here's an accessory that Andrew Cuomo should really consider keeping around the office so he's prepared the next time he grills another Wall Street CEO: the Truth Wristband Kit that was just released by Make magazine. How does it work? "The wearable device dynamically reflects your psycho-emotional response to the world, promoting internal states to be externalized and made into interactive forms of expression. Measuring the galvanic skin response (a marker of emotional arousal commonly used in lie detector tests), this device's lights turn from blue to red as the wearer becomes aroused." In other words, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and the boys at AIG don't stand a chance. [Make]

• Is AIG officially the most despised company in America? Following the disclosure over the weekend that execs planned to go ahead with $165 million in bonuses to top execs comes word that a good deal of the billions in bailout money it received went to banks like Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), Merrill Lynch ($6.8 billion), and Bank of America ($5.2 billion). [BN, NYT, WSJ]
• Larry Summers: "There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what's happened at AIG is the most outrageous." [BN]
• UBS plans to cut another 5,000 jobs. [Reuters]

• Investors are finding "wisps of hope" in the current not-so-bad economic news, so the three-day winning streak on Wall Street may continue today. [DB]
• AIG reached out to Warren Buffett twice before ultimately collapsing. [BN]
• Citigroup is looking at adding four new people to the company's board. [WSJ]
• Ken Lewis seems to be sending signals he wants out of BofA. [Dealbreaker]
• H. Rodgin Cohen is out of the running to be deputy Treasury secretary. [DB]
• There's already chatter that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may get pushed aside in favor of—yes, you guessed it—Steve Rattner. [BI]
• How bad is it for hedge funds? John Paulson was up 38 percent last year and he still lost 16 percent of his assets during the last half of 2008. [Portfolio]
• Two things you never expected to see: A meek, frightened Jim Cramer on national television. And a comedian talking about CDOs. [The Daily Show]

• Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit says the bank is "having the best quarter since 2007." Good news. Don't pay any attention to the fact regulators are making "contingency plans" in case Citi "takes a sudden turn for the worse." [BN, WSJ]
• Yet another Citi misstep: In addition to $3.5 million in gift cards, the bank gave out $13 million to employees whose vacations were canceled. [BN]
• Andrew Cuomo's assault on Bank of America continues: He's sent a new letter to BofA chief Ken Lewis demanding information on bonus payments—and he even had Barney Frank co-sign it. That will definitely do the trick. [NYP]
• Lehman's buyout division is back in business under new ownership. [FT]
• Boutique investment banking is back, in case you didn't hear. [DB]
• A firm that JP Morgan inherited when it took over Bear Stearns was sold to Barclays for $30 million. Bear paid $625 million for it in 2001. [WSJ]
• The jobless rate may reach 9.4% this year, a new survey suggests. [BN]

• It's expected to be a rough week ahead for financial markets. [Reuters, WSJ]
• The world economy is on track to post its worst performance since the Great Depression, according to a report by the World Bank. [CNN]
• The financial crisis seems to be "getting ahead" of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as if you weren't aware of that already. [NYT]
• The big beneficiaries of the AIG bailout: Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and a handful of other banks both foreign and domestic. [WSJ]
• After canceling a trip to reward its top brokers, Citigroup gave out $3.5 million worth of gift cards to 2,000 people as a consolation prize. [NYP]
• Credit markets appear to be tightening up once again. [WSJ]
• JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs advised on Merck's $41 billion acquisition of Schering-Plough, which was announced this morning. [DB]
• Expect to see fewer foreign bankers living it up in NYC beginning this summer: Bank of America is withdrawing job offers made to foreign MBA students. [FT]

• The unemployment rate jumped to 8.1% last month, the highest it's been since December 1983 and above expectations for an 8% rate. [WSJ, NYT, BN]
• A "trading irregularity" at Merrill may have cost the firm hundreds of millions of dollars. Naturally, no one seemed to notice any of this until after the bank was acquired by BofA and Merrill handed out record bonuses. [BN, DB]
• Wells Fargo has slashed its quarterly dividend to a nickel a share. [WSJ]
• Citigroup may sell its stake in Japan's second-largest online broker. [DB]
• Would you like to invest in the bailout? You may get your chance. [WaPo]
• Did you lose your finance job? How about a job at Cantor Fitzgerald? [DB]

• Stocks appear positioned to rise this morning after tumbling to their worst levels in more than a decade during yesterday's trading session. [CNN, MW]
• More on what the government is trying to do with the billions it's been pumping into AIG. Meanwhile, the insurance giant's founder, Hank Greenberg, has filed suit against his former company and accused it of fraud. [NYT, NYP]
• Citigroup is still hoping to shed a handful of "non-core" assets, including its mortgage and insurance operations, Japanese brokerage, and private-label credit card business. [NYP]

• The Treasury Department announced a plan to save Citigroup from near-certain doom. The government will take a 36 percent stake in the company, three-quarters of the bank's shareholders will be wiped out, and the board will be overhauled. Vikram Pandit? He keeps his job. [WSJ, BN, NYT]
• New GDP figures indicate "the U.S. recession deepened a lot more in late 2008 than first reported." The figures haven't been this bad since '82. [WSJ]
• Stocks tumbled this morning on the Citigroup and GDP news. [BN]
• Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed Bank of America seeking the names of the Merrill execs who received $3.6 billion in bonuses. This comes after BofA CEO Ken Lewis failed to provide the details during his deposition yesterday. [DB]
• A "mutiny is brewing" within UBS's investment banking unit following the ouster of the bank's CEO, Marcel Rohner. [NYP]
• Blackstone reported a fourth-quarter loss of $827.1 million. [BN]
• Bernie Madoff moved $164 million from London to New York in the weeks before he was busted, according to new court documents. [NYP]
• Scammer Sam Israel has moved from a prison hospital back to prison. [AP]

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis will be sitting down with investigators from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office today as part of the probe into the $3.6 billion in bonuses that Merrill Lynch paid out just days before it was acquired by BofA. Lewis didn't indicate what time he was scheduled to give his deposition, although in typical Lewisian fashion, he made it sound like something he was thrilled to be doing: "I look forward to the chance to speak candidly and forthrightly and honestly and tell the story." But he may be in for a rude awakening when he turns up at Cuomo's offices today.

• Citigroup is close to a pact to boost the government's stake in the failing bank to as much as 40%; Vikram Pandit's job, however, should be safe. [WSJ, NYP]
• More on what the Obama administration is hoping to find out when it begins conducting the "stress tests" to see how banks hold up during a crisis. [WSJ]
• RBS has reported the biggest loss ($34.3 billion) in British history. [Reuters]
• Bank of America is considering a sale of First Republic Bank [WSJ]
• UBS has named Oswald Grübel as the company's new CEO. [FT]
• JPMorgan Chase will have eliminated a total of 12,000 jobs by the time it folds in the operations of Washington Mutual. [AP]
• Yet another massive financial fraud uncovered: Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh have been implicated in a $667 million scheme. [NYT]

The Orlando Sentinel reports that as late as last week, Merrill Lynch was still sending employees down to the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, supposedly to take part in "training events." We're going to go ahead and assume this news won't win Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis any points with Andrew Cuomo, who's already investigating the $4 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill employees just days before completing its sale to BofA. [Orlando Sentinel via Clusterstock]

• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis has been subpoenaed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over bonuses and losses at Merrill Lynch. [WSJ, Reuters]
• Citigroup is raising more cash by selling off more assets. [WSJ, DB]
• More on the efforts to compel UBS to divulge the identities of 52,000 Americans suspected of using offshore accounts to dodge taxes. [NYT]
• Jon Winkelried may have left Goldman Sachs because he realized he wasn't in line to take over for Lloyd Blankfein as CEO. [Clusterstock]
• There's evidence that the credit markets are thawing a bit. [BN]
• The cost of living rose in January for the first time in six months. [BN]

"Met: Are you hiring?????" That's the question a Bank of America worker pasted on his office window in a midtown-Manhattan skyscraper. The giant, troubled bank's building is next to MetLife, a more solvent insurance firm.