• Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have applied to refund a total of $45 billion of bailout money. The government now has to decide whether to take the cash and run the risk of upsetting less fortunate banks who can't afford to repay their bailout money. [BN, DB]
• Money management giant Blackrock has its hand in just about everything these days, which is why lots of people are asking questions. [NYT, WSJ]
• Eight months after Lehman Brothers went down and lawyers are raising questions about the "rushed sale" of its capital markets unit to Barclays. [DB]
• American Express says it plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs. [NYT]
• Builders broke ground on the fewest homes on record in April. Housing starts dropped 12.8%, although Wall Street had been predicting an increase. [BN]
• Tim Geithner says he doesn't want to institute pay caps. He just wants to curb aggressive risk-taking. Of course, if you can't take risk, you can't make a lot of money, so we're right back where we started, aren't we? [NYT]

• AIG's Ed Liddy now says the company will need three to five years to carry out its restructuring plan and repay taxpayer bailout money. [NYT]
• Hedge funds actually saw returns rise more than three percent in April. [DB]
• Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich hedge fund is no more. The disgraced firm is handing over its remaining $2.5 billion to Sciens Capital. [NYP]
• The rich get richer: As financial firms raise capital and pay back TARP money, it's Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan that are profiting. [Fortune]

Jobs! Everybody needs one to pay for booze and porcelain figurine collections and such, right? We can't all be Ben Silverman and douche our way to the top! So we've been keeping an eye out!

• 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]

We don't think this Craigslist ad from a supposed Goldman Sachs banker is real. For one thing, whoever heard of an employed investment banker? Still, his kink is a real kick!

• President Obama will propose new laws today to crack down on companies and wealthy individuals who use a variety of tax loopholes to move their assets offshore and avoid paying taxes. [WSJ, BN]
• Citigroup and Bank of America are both rumored to be working on plans to raise more than $10 billion in fresh capital a piece, although Bank of America is now denying that such a plan is underway. [FT, DB, BI]
• Questions are being raised about New York Fed chairman Stephen Friedman's ties to Goldman Sachs and possible conflicts of interest. [WSJ]

What do you do when your career on Wall Street has come to an ignominious end and you need to keep busy lest you end up spending the rest of your days playing bridge or golf? Take a job in academia! Greg Fleming, the former president of Merrill Lynch, is now a member of the Yale Law School faculty: This semester, he's teaching a class that will explain the "economic events of the past year," which should also help Fleming shed some light on what exactly he was doing as the man in charge of risk management at Merrill Lynch the past few years. Fleming isn't the only one.

• Citigroup posted its first profit in 18 months today, which made Wall Street very happy and sent Citi shares up to a whopping $4. [WSJ, DB]
• GE's first-quarter profit fell less than expected, dropping 35% compared to a year earlier, results that gave shares a boost in early trading. [BN, WSJ]
• AIG chief Ed Liddy still owns a big stake in Goldman Sachs, info that will be most pleasing to Goldman conspiracy theorists out there. [NYT, NYT]
• Is the banking business showing signs of recovery? [NYT]
• Carl Icahn and Kirk Kerkorian are locked in battle over MGM Mirage. [WSJ]
• General Growth Properties's bankruptcy will make hedge funder Bill Ackman a very rich man. And he already happens to be a very rich man. [NYT]
• The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco now says it was a mistake to allow Lehman Brothers to collapse. Now you tell us? [BN]

• UBS is cutting another 7,500 jobs after posting a $1.8 billion quarterly loss and clients pulled more than $20 billion out of the firm. [BN, NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo strikes again: Carlyle Group is now under investigation by the attorney general and the SEC over whether it illegally paid third parties to secure $1.3 billion in investments from New York's pension fund. [BN]
• BlackRock plans to raise $5-$7 billion to scoop up toxic assets. [Reuters]
• Scandal du jour: Danny Pang, who heads up the $4 billion fund Private Equity Management Group, has a few questions to answer, it would seem. [WSJ]

Goldman Sachs is totally making money again, which means this: there's money to be made. Unless you work somewhere else in the economy, besides Goldman Sachs. Then, the news is not so good.

• Stocks dropped at the opening bell this morning following the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell 1.1 percent last month. [WSJ]
• The SEC is looking into whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out billions in bonuses. [FT]
• President Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae chief Herb Allison to head up the government's $700 billion financial rescue program. [WSJ]
• From Dick Fuld to Tim Geithner, Steve Rattner to former AIG chief Bob Willumstad, the big guns of finance have a friend in Michael Bloomberg. [NYT]
• Lehman Brothers "is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound." No, this is not a joke. [BN]

And you thought Wall Street was struggling. Goldman Sachs announced a first-quarter profit of $1.66 billion today, a 13 percent bump from what the bank earned during the quarter of 2007. Goldman also announced plans to raise $5 billion via a stock offering so it can pay back Washington the $10 billion it's received in bailout funds thus far. But don't mistake this for a grand civic gesture on the part of Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein.

Remember Neel Kashkari, the government's workaholic bailout czar? We're guessing his job overseeing the nation's finances isn't keeping him that busy. He had time to return to his high school and give a speech!

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein addressed the Council of Institutional Investors this morning and addressed the issue of how banks pay their employees, suggesting that Wall Street "apply basic standards to how we compensate people in our industry." (It's unclear if these "standards" would apply to Blankfein personally, who earned nearly $70 million in 2007 and $43 million in 2008.) But you have to give him points for the warm welcome he gave the ladies from Code Pink, who rushed the stage during his speech with a giant sign that said "We want our $$$$$ back."

• The private sector lost 742,000 jobs during the month of March, substantially more than analysts had been predicting. [WSJ, CNN]
• President Obama has indicated that he believes a "quick, negotiated bankruptcy" will be the most likely path for General Motors. [BN]
• The not-so-optimistic employment figures and increased concern about the future of GM may lead to a rough day in the markets. [BN]
• Mark Carhart and Raymond Iwanowski of Goldman's Alpha hedge fund are retiring. Rumor now has it they may end up at KKR. [Clusterstock]
• A dozen criminal investigations into bailout fraud are now underway. [FT]
• Remember when Cerberus founder Steve Feinberg was "hailed as a hero" who "might save the American car industry"? So much for that idea. [NYT]
• UBS is closing its "art banking" department, not surprisingly. [AP]
• This is a particularly dangerous time to be a CEO, clearly. [NYP]

• 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]

• Andrew Cuomo reports that 15 of the top 20 recipients of the $165 million in AIG bonuses have agreed to give back the cash. As for the other five, Cuomo is still "thinking about" releasing their names. Hint, hint. [NYT]
• Tim Geithner will call for the Treasury to be granted the power to seize troubled financial firms when he goes before a Congressional panel today. [DB]
• More trouble for AIG: The IRS is looking into cushy tax deals that were structured by the same unit that collected those millions in bonuses. [WSJ]
• Goldman Sachs plans to give back its bailout money in the next month. [DB]
• More on the programs unveiled by Tim Geithner yesterday, which created plenty of enthusiasm on Wall Street and sent the Dow up 7 percent. [NYT]
• The trustee overseeing the Madoff mess says he found an additional $75 million laying around, so there's some good news for you. [NYT]
• What a difference a year makes: "The best-performing deal of billionaire Henry Kravis's empire is a deep-discount retailer selling $1 dog treats and $2 bleach to lower-income shoppers." [WSJ]

• The epic fallout from AIG's decision to pay out bonuses enters a second day: Andrew Cuomo says he plans to subpoena company execs, the Obama administration is scrambling to cool emotions, but clearly his influence is limited. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has suggested that AIG execs follow a "Japanese model" and choose between "apology or suicide." [NYT, ABC, WSJ]
• Given the new restrictions on Wall Street bonuses, banks are now looking for loopholes and planning to boost base salaries to offset lower bonuses. [WSJ]
• Goldman Sachs is bailing out its own employees: It's offering to lend money to more than 1,000 employees who've been squeezed by the crisis. [NYT]
• Mortgage fraud is at an all-time high, but you probably figured that. [CNN]
• Unsurprisingly, banks are raising interest rates and cutting credit lines. [BN]
• Housing starts surged in February from a record low the month before. [BN]

• 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]

When Ghostface said "The glorious days are gone, and everybody's doing bad," he was referring to the day (today) when Goldman Sachs bankers would be forced to stay in the fucking Embassy Suites. It's bullshit.