The first half of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric aired tonight and it's already making the wrong sorts of headlines. This is looking a lot like Palin's train wreck sit-down with ABC News' Charlie Gibson. (Video of the most damaging moments — this time around — after the jump.)

Somehow, YouTube already has a copy of David Letterman tonight lacerating John McCain for skipping the Late Show and suspending his campaign in the midst of the Wall Street meltdown. As reported earlier by Drudge, Letterman became especially upset when he caught the Republican presidential nominee in a live feed from New York being interviewed by his own network's Katie Couric. McCain had personally told Letterman he was canceling because he was headed back to the capital to handle the financial crisis. Whoops.

How convenient: the entire subprime mess explained in two minutes using stick figures. [BusinessPundit via BoingBoing]

Whenever the media say anything about John McCain that isn't "he is the coolest hero ever and sooo dreamy" his campaign accuses every journalist in the country of being "in the tank" for Barack Obama. And whenever the press goes a day or two without talking exclusively about John McCain, the McCain campaign accuses the media of ignoring him. Kind of a biased-if-you-do, biased-if-you-don't situation. But we'll give the McCain campaign credit: they're consistent. In their attacks on the media, anyway. The enemy seems to shift a bit. Like, this week, apparently the media is ignoring John McCain in favor of... the rapidly growing financial crisis and the government's unprecedented plan to end it. Seriously, the McCain campaign is totally upset that no one will write about his "commission of technicians" but they all find time to talk about Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson! McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin—the guy who said McCain invented the BlackBerry and yet somehow retained his position as McCain's least bad economic advisor—sent a snippy email to like a thousand financial reporters yelling at them for not covering John McCain's secret plan to end the war on banks. "I cannot believe the absence of recognition of the policy substance," Holtz-Eakin wrote, followed by a list of all of McCain's fantastic vague ideas that he can't implement until January. Financial reporters who received the email were like, ok? What? Old man, there are more important things to talk about right now, like the end of capitalism!

So if investment banks are taking shelter from the financial shitstorm by morphing into commercial banks, does that mean Wall Streeters will soon have to deal with getting paid like commercial bankers, too? Good question! Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein took home $70.3 million last year; JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon collected $27.8 million; and Lehman Brothers chairman Dick Fuld walked away with $35 million. Of course that's not what their counterparts in commercial banking are making. Bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis, earned a meager $16.4 million last year. (We're weeping, too.) "I think they [investment banks] are going to have to come more in line with a more traditional compensation plan," says one expert. Guess you might have to wait a few more years before you can afford that loft in Tribeca or four-bedroom in Scarsdale! [NY Post]

Halfway through a cranky discussion with the Observer on New York real estate development, Tom Wolfe turned with relish to the topic of the ongoing financial panic. The enthusiasm was understandable from an author who wrote an epic novel, Bonfire Of The Vanities, psychologically centered on Wall Street. First thing to understand, according to Wolfe: Investment banks like Lehman Brothers hire losers, "real second-raters" from "the bottom of the barrel" who couldn't get on at hedge funds. Of course they set your money on fire! Second thing to understand: Even these incompetents might have made do if it weren't for the evils of information technology:

♦ Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke's visit to Washington did little to reassure lawmakers, who were almost uniformly critical of the government's proposed $700 billion bailout. [NYT, WSJ, WSJ]
♦ By the way, how much is $700 billion? Slate runs the numbers. [Slate]
♦ The FBI is now involved in the meltdown. The agency has opened preliminary investigations into possible fraud at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and AIG. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Warren Buffett's $5 billion investment in Goldman is viewed as a strong sign of confidence. And Goldman's stock is way up, not surprisingly. [NYT]
♦ Three top Lehman execs including Dick Fuld sold shares after Lehman filed for bankruptcy, with Fuld selling 3.17 million shares at an average of 21 cents a share. [WSJ]

For all the bloodletting on Wall Street, the financial services meltdown will probably mean handsome profits for at least some finance hacks. The troubles have to actually end before anyone has a shot at writing a popular book about them, but smart writers and publishers are already hunting. Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times and Roger Lowenstein of the Wall Street Journal are "considering" writing books, according to the Observer, while Newsweek's Daniel Gross is raring to go with a quickie electronic title he's ready to finish in two months flat. The most leveraged proposal (if you will) comes from Bethany "Enron" McLean of Fortune and Times columnist Joe Nocera, who basically drank until they worked up the nerve to demand a million bucks for their definitive insights:

IvyGate has discovered another great way to cover the banking armageddon: Quoting whiny would-be plutocrats who thought their pedigrees would make them fabulously wealthy on Wall Street but now can't even pull down seven lousy figures a year. Instead of becoming Big Swinging Dicks in i-banking, they find themselves working for (*shudder*) retail bankers and — oh God it gets worse — the government. That's right, when you take subsidized government cash to stay in business dumping government-backed mortgages on the government at prices inflated with government money, you're not a capitalist raider anymore, you're a bureaucrat with a salary cap. As you can imagine, this has Harvard grads sounding as bitter as furloughed, Hillary Clinton-voting factory workers in the rust belt:

Warren Buffett, the world's richest man and the founder of Berkshire Hathaway, is planning to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. That sound you just heard? That's Lloyd Blankfein exhaling. [NYT, WSJ]

Dick Fuld has been missing in action for nearly a week now. The man who presided over Lehman Brothers as it plunged into bankruptcy, Fuld hasn't uttered more than a few words to the press since the firm went belly up last week. He hasn't made an appearance in the office (or has he?), although as we noted last week, his secretary is answering the phone outside his spacious 31st floor office at Lehman (Barclays!) headquarters at 745 Seventh Avenue. But what about the big man himself? We guessed he was holed up at his compound in Greenwich. But it turns out he's not at home either! Click on the video above and it will also become clear that despite the millions he's pocketed in recent years, Dick's yet to invest in a decent answering machine.

We thought this might have been a Photoshop prank when we first saw it, but the Post now confirms it: Barclays, the British bank that announced it was purchasing a bankrupt Lehman Brothers last week, changed the neon sign outside Lehman's headquarters at 745 Seventh Avenue this morning. Like you wouldn't do the same thing if a $1.5 billion office building landed in your lap for pennies on the dollar! [NYP]

Are you a financial executive, partly responsible for the economic meltdown and personally poorer as a result? Well, Slate wants to know why you haven't killed yourself already! The Great Crash of 1929 prompted lots of suicides, including four newsworthy leaps from buildings; the '87 stock market crash, while lacking any exciting window plunges, can at least boast of a murder-suicide, when an investor killed a Merrill Lynch exec and then himself.

Last Friday we were told that alcohol sales have shot up on account of the Wall Street meltdown. Today another totally obvious angle to the financial crisis is explored, one that explains what the people who haven't been getting wasted have been doing with their free time: They're in church! Yes, brief interviews with a handful of local clergymen seems to suggest that New Yorkers are now turning to God for comfort and consolation. Reverend Mark Bozzuti-Jones of Trinity Church says he's seen a upturn in visitors over the past week and says the church is now putting together workshops and seminars with titles like "Coping with stress in an uncertain time" and "Navigating career transitions."

What does it take to get American editorial pages honest-to-God riled up about something? In addition to the expected criticism from the left, Hank Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout has been savaged by no less a conservative than Newt Gingrich, who wrote, "we’re using the taxpayers’ money to hire people to save their friends with even more taxpayer money." Among the more strenuous Congressional opponents is the Republican senator from Alabama who chairs the Senate banking committee and said he worries the bailout "is neither workable nor comprehensive despite its enormous price tag." The Monday plunge in the dollar and U.S. stocks was widely seen as rendering judgement on the cost and effectiveness of the plan, unveiled over the weekend. And yet, save for some quibbling about oversight, the Times' Tuesday editorial on the matter treats the bailout as a given:

Even before the Wall Street meltdown, New York's traditional media and advertising companies faced serious sales declines as internet competitors, including West Coast companies like Google, ate into margins. With financial services in freefall, a second pillar of the city economy has seriously weakened. Cue the Gotham press' anxious soul-searching and visions of a return to the weary days of the 1970s. "It's going to be very severe for New York City," a Manhattan College finance professor said in Tuesday morning's Times. New York magazined mused in this week's issue about the global financial center shifting from Wall Street to London, Dubai and Hong Kong, "like the decline of New York’s manufacturing base in the seventies." And the New Yorker is already racing to find the upside of financial armageddon, which as you know turns out to be creative ferment:

If you cashed in during the boom times by taking shortcuts—or you made a fortune during the credit crisis by spreading misinformation—and you're wondering what your life will be like in a few years after the government investigation is complete and you're facing an indictment as long as your arm, you'd be well advised to take a look at the article in the Times today about Alberto Vilar, the disgraced financier who once presided over Amerindo Investment Advisors. Once worth $1 billion and one of the largest donors to the Metropolitan Opera (the Met later ripped out the plaque with Vilar's name on it after he was indicted), Vilar hasn't found much peace in the three years since he was first accused of fraud.

Sallie Krawcheck, the Citi group executive (and financial press media darling) who once served as the bank's CFO but was pushed aside and placed in charge of Citi's wealth management division in 2007, is out of a job, according to the Wall Street Journal. Her exit didn't come as much of a surprise to Citi insiders. There has been tension between Krawcheck and Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit ever since he took over as CEO less than a year ago, and back in May Krawcheck criticized Pandit publicly before later backtracking on her remarks.

As Wall Street burns and the government plunders our tax dollars to uphold the mere appearance of economic stability, financial companies are turning to their most trusted advisers for answers: ad agencies. Because when shit is really fucked up, the only way to take advantage of the situation is to convince the public that you are slightly less fucked up than all your competitors. After the jump, we look at what some financial companies are saying right now—and then tell you what they should be saying, if only they weren't scared of, you know, total ruin: Zurich Financial Services Group Aim: "wanted to directly address the recent economic turmoil." What they say: The company is "here to give you real help in an uncertain world, backed by the financial strength and stability of the Zurich American Insurance Company...It's help that's here now." What they should say: "What with the recent economic turmoil, why not go with Zurich? It's named after a city that's not in America, where everything is going to hell." Rockefeller & Company Aim: Reassure people they're stable. What they say: "Responsible and stable wealth management through turbulent times." What they should say: "Rockefeller stands for Rich. And that will never change, yo." Wachovia Securities Aim: Get people to invest again. What they say: "Think long term." What they should say: "Don't be a pussy." AXA Equitable Aim: Reassure people they're stable. What they say: "In these chaotic times, there is a financial services company dedicated to redefining commitment." (WTF?) What they should say: "Yes, we have a 3-letter name that starts with "A." But we're not AIG. Look it up." AIG Aim: To slink away quietly. What they say: Nothing, since they pulled their ads. What they should say: "Nothing" seems to be the right move. [NYT, WSJ]

Goldman Sachs has never had to depend on TV advertising. It's far too populist a medium for the king of investment banks. But now that Wall Street is dead, Goldman may have to actually go after the public at large. So Gawker video maven Richard Blakeley "recontextualized" some work by comedian Fritz Donnelly , ending up with this ad prototype that Goldman will likely want to steal. Pay attention, fancy financiers: this is how you sell to real people. Click to watch the future of American economic messaging.