Dallas Morning News - It’s every SMU grad’s dream: to be young, handsome, and closely involved with deciding how to spend $700 billion.
Attention, Class of 2000: Your fellow alum, Jeb Mason, is living it.
Mr. Mason, 32, has spent his entire career inside the Bush administration. His first assignment: running the mailroom for President George […]

Bloomberg - During the height of the financial crisis in late September, some of Barack Obama’s campaign advisers pushed him in a conference call to distance himself from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief executive officer, they warned, was too close to President George W. Bush and Wall Street.
Obama, 47, […]

New York (HedgeCo.Net) - SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he was all for a merger between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hopping on board with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, this was the first time Cox has publically supported a merger that was first brought to the table years ago.  […]

Bloomberg - U.S. Representative Barney Frank is walking through Statuary Hall in the Capitol, a portrait of rumples and wrinkles. His left shirttail hangs out over his belt. Reporters and photographers are hounding him. Cameras are whirring. Questions are being shouted.
“How’s it going?” one reporter shouts.
“If you let me get […]

In an interview on Bloomberg TV, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, when asked whether hedge funds might be eligible for the U.S. plan injecting capital into financial companies he said, "the program right now is for banks and thrifts."
On Monday, the Treasury announced plans to use $250 billion of the $700 billion financial bailout plan approved […]

Bloomberg - Gold fell for the fourth straight session after the U.S. agreed to spend $250 billion to rescue ailing banks. Silver climbed.
Stocks in Europe and Asia rose for a second day after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans to buy stakes in financial firms to ease the lending crisis. Gold fell 1.9 percent yesterday […]

Forbes - The hedge fund sector has to date weathered market volitality better than the banking sector, since no large bellwether hedge fund has yet gone bankrupt. Nonetheless, hedge funds are expecting a wave of redemptions, as investors move to safer investments and reconsider their commitments to the sector.
Hedge fund sector resilience? Whereas banking sector […]

Slate - The Wall Street bailout is alive again. In an effort to make the $700 billion bailout palatable, the architects of the law have larded it up with all sorts of goodies, such as increasing the levels of deposit insurance, sparing some taxpayers the ravages of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and extending tax breaks […]

KTAK - U.S. lawmakers and President George W. Bush eased pressure on financial markets on Tuesday by starting work to revive a $700 billion bailout plan to stem a credit crisis that has spread beyond Wall Street to claim more European banks.
U.S. stocks roared back — a day after their worst sell-off in 21 years […]

New York (HedgeCo.Net) - Citigroup Inc. has purchased Wachovia’s banking operations at a price tag of $2.16 billion, or roughly $1 a share, after losses stemming from bad mortgages rendered a resurfacing nearly impossible.  Citigroup will now have around 4,300 branches and offices and will surpass JPMorgan Chase as the largest U.S. bank by deposits. 
Treasury […]

New York (HedgeCo.Net) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday in an attempt to sway lawmakers to pass a $700 billion rescue plan that would purchase illiquid mortgage-backed assets in an attempt to restore the U.S. financial system.   Reaffirming that his interest lies solely in the recovery of the U.S. […]

Washington Post - Given the panic in Washington over the financial markets, it is virtually certain that Congress will soon pass some form of the bailout plan the Treasury put forward last week. This is not an ideal proposal, particularly since it does not address the underlying problem with mortgages and negative housing equity. […]