Now that he's moved on to bigger and shinier things, Barack Obama has no need for his old mode of transportation. I'm actually pretty sure he ditched it a while back, but hey — now it can be yours. The eBay scourers over at BuzzFeed stumbled on an exciting opportunity to purchase Obama's 2005 Chrysler 300. For a paltry one million dollars, you can drive around in the same car then-Senator Obama may have used to travel between Washington D.C. and Chicago. That's right, no guarantees. At least the listing is honest?

Stop whatever it is you're doing right now and watch this immediately, because it just won Super Bowl Sunday. It's the Eminem-starring ad for the Chrysler 200—"Imported From Detroit"—and it's a goose bump-inducing work of pure art.

When Ken Feinberg, the guy Obama charged with reining in bonuses at bailed-out firms, asked AIG who its top-paid executives were, they couldn't answer. That place is a black hole of money.

The Treasury Department's soon-to-be-announced executive pay guidelines will drastically slash cash payouts to executives at GM, Citibank, AIG, Bank of America, and Chrysler. Not on the list: AIG pass-through beneficiary Goldman Sachs.

• Chrysler's alliance with Fiat is a done deal. [CNN]
• Good news, bankers: The Obama administration is dropping its plan to cap salaries at firms receiving government bailout money. [WSJ]
• Citigroup is swapping $58 billion of preferred stock into common shares, a move that will make the U.S. government the bank's largest shareholder. [BN]
• The ten banks that were given to go-ahead to repay U.S. aid had planned on returning a combined $68.3 billion. Add another $4.6 billion to the tab! [DB]
• FDIC chair Sheila Bair stirred the pot the other day when she said she hoped to oust Citi's Vikram Pandit. Now both sides are defusing tensions. [FT]
• Hedgie John Paulson is investing $100 million in CB Richard Ellis. [WSJ]

• The Treasury is expected to announce this morning that 10 banks have been given the go-ahead to repay their Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. [BN]
• The Supreme Court put the acquisition of Chrysler by Fiat on hold yesterday pending objections from three state pension funds and consumer groups. Fiat, however, says it has no plans to abandon the deal. [WSJ, NYT, DB]
• The Obama administration appears to be backing away from plans to reduce the number of three-letter agencies that oversee U.S. financial markets. [WSJ]
• Citigroup isn't paying out big bonuses in the U.S. But that isn't the case in London, where the bank has been luring traders with fat pay packages. [DB]
• Don't expect to see former Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski walking the streets in the near future. The Supreme Court rejected his appeal yesterday. [NYP]

• Disappointing retail sales figures and a surprising rise in the number of foreclosures are sending stocks lower this morning. [CNN, WSJ]
• The Obama administration is looking into ways to change the way people across the financial services industry are compensated and that includes companies that didn't even receive federal bailout money. [WSJ, NYT]
• Ed Liddy may be jobless soon: Trustees overseeing taxpayers' stake in AIG are seeking a CEO to replace Liddy as well as new board members. [WSJ]
• Speaking of AIG, were officials like Tim Geithner aware of the bonus situation at the company months before the news broke? It looks that way. [WaPo]

• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis won't be in a good mood today, that's for sure. Regulators have informed the bank that it will have to come up with $34 billion in new capital if it expects to weather the downturn. [WSJ, NYT]
• For its part, Citigroup may have to come up with $5-$10 billion. [Reuters]
• Remember all the outrage that followed the disclosure that AIG had paid out more than $100 million in bonuses? It seems the bonus pool was four times larger than previously anticipated. Oh, well. [NYP]
• Companies cut an estimated 491,000 workers in April, which is less than previous months and possibly a sign that the worst is over. [BN]

Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection later this afternoon, the White House announced moments ago. "It marks the first time a major American car company has tried to restructure under bankruptcy protection since Studebaker in 1933." [NYT]

• It looks like Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today after last-minute negotiations with creditors failed to result in a deal. [BN]
• Good news: fewer Americans filed first-time applications for unemployment insurance last week. Bad news: personal spending is down. [BN, WSJ]
• UBS has eliminated 2,000 U.S. jobs as part of a round of job cuts. [DB]
• Hedge funder Phil Falcone has been sued by his former right-hand. [NYP]
• State Street Corp. is now under investigation by state regulators. [WSJ]
• Financier Danny Pang has been given $1 million bail. He'll be under house arrest, though, so presumably he won't be heading off to China. [DB]
• Changing AIG's name to AIU has done little to redeem the company's rep or distract from its previous failings, you'll be shocked to hear, we're sure. [NYT]

Once GM and Chrysler finally die, there will be no more pension plans left in the entire country (except for former presidents and members of congress). Sorry!

• After a two-month wait, the nation's 19 largest banks will start to hear today how they did on those stress tests conducted by Washington regulators. [NYT]
• If the test indicates Citigroup will need more money to stay afloat, Vikram Pandit can probably kiss his job as the bank's CEO goodbye. [NYP]
• Andrew Cuomo is urging federal regulators to investigate allegations that Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke applied pressure to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis to go ahead with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch. [WSJ, NYT, CNN]
• Chrysler is preparing to file for Chapter 11 as soon as next week. [WSJ]

• Expect to see Tim Geithner grilled on Capitol Hill today over his failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. Thanks to the financial crisis, you can also expect to see him confirmed very quickly. [Reuters, WSJ]
• Merrill Lynch clients withdrew $10 billion from accounts during in the fourth quarter, just as Bank of America completed its takeover of the firm. [BN]
• BofA is getting ready to cut another 4,000 jobs beginning this week. [FT]
• BlackRock, the biggest publicly traded U.S. asset manager, posted a 84 percent drop in profits in the fourth-quarter. [DB]
• The good news for Chrysler? The struggling automaker has found a savior in Fiat. The bad news? The deal is reportedly contingent on Chrysler getting $3 billion in additional government loans. [WSJ, NYT]

• Fiat will take a 35 percent stake in struggling Chrysler. [WSJ]
• Steve Feinberg's Cerberus Capital Management will cut 10 percent of its staff around the world. [WSJ]
• American Express's Ken Chenault plans to sell the company's stake in Chinese bank Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. [NYP]
• Bank of America may need as much as $80 billion to stay afloat. [BN]
• The hunt is still on for Arthur Nadel, the hedge fund manager from Florida who may have made off with as much as $350 million. [DB, NYP]
• Notwithstanding the bailout, top execs on Wall Street have been some of the biggest donors to the Presidential Inauguration Committee. [NYT]

Can we take back the auto bailout? Chrysler, which will receive a $4 million loan from the U.S. government on Monday, has already spent $100,000 of that cash on a full-page ad in USA Today.

A Wall Street bailout. An auto bailout. A housing bailout. And now, the last straw: a Bernie Madoff bailout. Pass the bucket: my stomach needs a bailout.

• The Journal is reporting that GM and Chrysler have resumed merger talks, although both companies have denied it. Chrysler has, however, said that it plans to shut down production for a month. [WSJ, Bloomberg, DB]
• Morgan Stanley employees will see bonuses drop by half this year. [NYP]
• Partners at Goldman Sachs may see bonuses fall by 80 percent. [FT]
• Mary Schapiro will head up the SEC in the Obama administration. [MW]
• More on the efforts to expose Bernie Madoff many years earlier, concerns that were brought to the SEC and ignored. [WSJ]
• Real estate execs in NYC have been particularly hard hit by Madoff. [NYT]
• What to do if you lost a fortune to Bernie Madoff? Sue someone. [FT, NYP]

♦ With shares down 26 percent yesterday, Citigroup is now weighing all of its options, including possible selling the firm. The board meets today to discuss the " range of scenarios that were unthinkable only weeks ago." [WSJ]
♦ The market bounced back in early trading after historic sell-offs in recent days. [MW]
♦ Hedge funds contracted by 9 percent in October, the lowest level in two years. [Bloomberg]
♦ A bailout of the auto industry won't be taking place just yet. Talks between Detroit and Washington collapsed with lawmakers saying the industry lacked credible plans to return to profitability. [WSJ]
♦ The city's securities industry shed about 16,000 employees in October. [DB]

♦ Employers cut 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the year's total job losses to nearly 1.2 million. The unemployment rate is now 6.5%, up from from 6.1% in September. [CNNMoney]
♦ Why has the market been falling sharply in recent days? One reason is that hedge funds have been selling billions of their holdings to meet demands for cash from their investors and their lenders. [WSJ]
♦ Citigroup is reportedly planning another round of layoffs. [DB]
♦ Ken Griffin's Citadel says his fund lost about 22 percent last month. [NYP]
♦ The evidence is largely anecdotal, but it appears there's been an increase in suicides related to the financial crisis. [NYT]

♦ John Thain says he expects "thousands" of job cuts will follow Merrill Lynch's merger with Bank of America. [Bloomberg]
♦ Another day, another bailout: The Netherlands will inject $13.4 billion into ING. [WSJ]
♦ GM is having difficulty acquiring Chrysler because it can't come up with the financing. [WSJ]