• Merrill Lynch's top 10 earners in 2008—a list that Andrew Cuomo will be interested to take a look at—is out. Each made more than $10 million in cash and stock in 2008 as the bank racked up losses of $27.6 billion. [WSJ]
• The private sector lost nearly 700,000 jobs in February. [CNN]
• A UBS exec will address the Swiss bank scandal on Capitol Hill today. [NYT]
• Ben Bernanke yesterday: "If there is a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one other than AIG." [BN]
• Bill Ackman's hedge fund dropped in February, Ken Griffin gained. [BN, NYP]
• More than 8.3 million mortgages are underwater, according to a report. [BN]
• Bernie Madoff has agreed to give up rights to his investment firm and company art collection. A hearing scheduled for today to look into conflicts of interest on the part of his lawyer, Ira Sorkin, has been postponed. [AP]

Sandy Weill presided over Citigroup until 2006 when he stepped aside and handed the reigns to his self-appointed successor Chuck Prince (who, in turn, was replaced by the bank's current CEO, Vikram Pandit). When Weill left the company, he departed with hundreds of millions in Citi stock and a very generous golden parachute to boot. So how much is he worth now that the U.S. government owns a third of the company and Citi shares can be had for a buck and a quarter? Charlie Gasparino does the math: "The last public filing for Weill stock ownership came out in February 2006. It said he held 16.555 million shares. With a stock price hovering off its highs but at a still healthy $46 dollars, Weill's holdings in Citi were worth more than $760 million. If he hadn't sold a single share, those same holdings would be worth a tad more than $20 million today."

Just in case you had any doubts that the fourth quarter of 2008 was a horrible one for hedge funds, the bloody 13F charts compiled by Wall Street Folly will help you put the misery into perspective in a matter of seconds. [WSF]

• 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]

Dow Below 6,800; Lowest Close Since '97 [NYT]
Dow Falls Below 6800 Amid Broad Retreat [WSJ]
Dow below 7,000 [CNN Money]

AIG announced this morning that it lost $61 billion during the fourth quarter of 2008, or $465,421 per minute. To put that into perspective, "every six seconds it loses enough to pay full tuition for a year at Harvard." [NYT]

• The government is pumping another $30 billion into AIG, the insurance giant deemed "too big to fail." The company also reported a fourth-quarter loss of $61 billion, the largest quarterly loss in history. [NYT, BN, WSJ]
• Stocks moved lower on Monday morning following the AIG news. [BN]
• HSBC is cutting 6,100 jobs and raising $18 billion in capital. [Reuters, DB]
• Hedge funds are bracing for another wave of withdrawals. [WSJ]
• The third bailout of Citigroup last week? It may not be the last. [NYT]
• Investment banks pulled in $53 billion in fees in 2008, 39 percent less than the record $87 billion of a year earlier. JPMorgan took the biggest share. [BN]
• Consumer spending rose in January for the first time in seven months as shoppers took advantage of post-holiday discounts. [BN]

Elie Wiesel, author, survivor, voice of morality, expert on evil, has found someone he'd like locked up and tortured for crimes against humanity: Bernie Madoff, who took all his money.

"People need to be encouraged to start spending again," Michael Gross writes, especially the masters of the universe—such as John Thain, left—who made a mint during the boom years and then led us into this mess. So how do we go about doing that? Not by shunning them, or requiring them to take their fortunes and turn the cash over to the government. (It would probably be wasted on Citigroup anyway.) Maybe we could just force them to pump the cash into the local economy?

• 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]

It looks like it's been a good year thus far for Phil Falcone, the hedge fund kingpin who resides in the ornate Guccione mansion, is the owner of a pet pig named Pickles, and made a fortune last fall betting against the British bank HBOS. (He also controls a big chunk of the New York Times, which probably won't go down as his best investment of the year.) Hedge Fund Alert reports that Falcone is now buying out Harbert Management, the firm that provided him with $25 million in start-up capital in 2001, a figure that blossomed into many billions before later crashing back to earth. Falcone is buying back the stake for an undisclosed sum and the deal will give him "100 percent control of the firm," which is precisely what "greedy pig billionaires" very much like. Or so we've heard. [NYT/Dealbook, previously]

• Citi chief Vikram Pandit is still working out the details of a rescue package that would turn over as much as 40% of the bank to the federal government. He'd really love to hang on to his job as part of the deal, though. [WSJ]
• In a last-ditch effort to raise cash, Citigroup is looking to sell off both its Japanese investment bank and brokerage. [Reuters]
• John Thain "sneaked in a side door" to answer Andrew Cuomo's questions for a second time on Tuesday, and provide more detail on the billions in bonuses Merrill Lynch handed out just before the firm was acquired by BofA. [NYDN]
• AIG is now facing two "distasteful" options: sell "prized assets to competitors or hand over a big part of its business to the federal government." [NYT]
• Connecticut is planning legislation to regulate the hedge fund industry. [DB]
• You can thank Ben Bernacke for the Dow's rally yesterday. [NYT]
• Existing-home sales tumbled to a nearly 12-year low in January, and prices took a double-digit drop. [WSJ]

So you stop off at your money manager's office atop some gleaming Midtown office building and you find him in a vast office filled with priceless art work, sitting behind an antique desk dressed in a $10,000 custom-made suit, and fingering photos of a new beachfront estate in East Hampton he's had his eye on. Should that be a warning sign you've invested your money with the next Bernie Madoff? That's what the Wall Street Journal's Wealth Report wonders today, pointing out that the recent crop of fraudsters all seemed to very much enjoy parading around their riches:

We knew that celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz had some serious financial problems. But we didn't know they were so bad that she had to sign over all of her photos to a pawn shop:

• As part of the rescue plan currently under discussion in Washington, the government would end up with 40 percent of Citigroup, which isn't quite the same as nationalizing it, but is pretty darn close. [NYT]
• JPMorgan Chase cut its dividend to a nickel yesterday. [AP]
• John Thain spent six hours answering Andrew Cuomo's questions last week. But he'll make a return visit this week now that a judge has ruled Thain has to provide more detail on Merrill's controversial bonus payouts. [Reuters]
• AIG needs more government money. Feel free to laugh or cry about this. [DB]
• UBS may end up going to court as it tries to fight an order to disclose the names of its American clients suspected of offshore tax evasion. [NYT]
• Allen Stanford had ties to Joe Biden's brother and son, apparently. [WSJ]
• A bankrupt Lehman Brothers is spinning off its venture capital arm. [WSJ]
• Home prices in 20 U.S. cities declined an average of 18.5% in December. [BN]
• Federal chairman Ben Bernanke says the recession should end this year and 2010 "will be a year of recovery," if the banking system's stabilized. Reassuring words, provided you still believe anything Bernanke has to say. [WSJ]

The markets took another tumble today with the Dow dropping 250 points to close at its lowest point since May 7, 1997. You remember May 7, 1997, don't you? No? Rudy Giuliani was trying to push through a round of tax cuts, Garry Kasparov was facing off against Deep Blue, Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh was still in the news, Ellen DeGeneres' coming-out was generating controversy, Hanson was still worthy of 1,200 words in the Times, and architects were dreaming about "a cook's cosmopolis" called the Chelsea Market, which would supply the epicure with "everything from lobsters to dairy-fresh milk in a series of deli-size storefronts." Yea, it was a really long time ago. [CNN]

• The government is in talks with Citigroup to raise its stake in the beleaguered bank to between 25 and 40 percent. [WSJ, DB]
• Federal regulators plan to review the financial condition of 20 banks this week as part of a round of "stress tests." [NYT, BN]
• Regulators have seized Allen Stanford's companies in Antigua and Barbuda; Stanford has also surrendered his passport to U.S. authorities. [Reuters]
• Shares in UBS have fallen to an all-time low as the bank continues to reel from allegations of tax fraud. [Reuters, DB]
• Even Dubai needs a bailout these days: The UAE said yesterday it will give the once-highflying emirate $10 billion. [WSJ]
• Steve Feinberg's Cerberus is closing down its Hong Kong office. [FT]
• Hedge funder Richard Perry is cutting fees to keep investors happy. [WSJ]
• The SEC is now in hot water over its handling of insider-trading accusations involving former executives at Lehman Brothers. [NYT]

It seems lots of laid-off bankers are interested in dressing up as clowns and entertaining small children at their birthday parties. At least that's what Gary Pincus, the owner of a company called Send In the Clowns Entertainment, tells the Times: "We get a lot of calls from Wall Street guys who are looking to work with us. They want to change their careers. I told them to call me when our season gets going in March." Mark your calendars! [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]

Whatever it is Bernie Madoff's been up to the last 13 years, we now know one thing he wasn't doing was investing his clients' cash. Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff's investment firm, said today that he's found no evidence that Madoff purchased any securities on behalf of customers in "at least 13 years." He also said that he's received 2,350 claims so far, and that a handful of subpoenas have been issued, including one to "a hair salon called Blow Styling Salon located blocks away from Mr. Madoff's Manhattan penthouse apartment." Can't wait to hear about that one! [WSJ, NYT]