Here's my interview with Charlie Gasparino, author of "The Sellout". In addition to calling the SEC "inept," watch to the end when he describes Wall Street CEO's. Can you guess which of the former Masters of the Universe is: "The Iconoclast," "Nasty," "Nastier," "Smart," "Twerp-ish" "a Man's man" and...

10.2% -- that's the most important number from the October Employment Report. For the first time since 1983, over 1 out of every 10 American is out of work. How's that for starting your Friday with some sobering news?

I'm starting to get the hang of this interview thing...of course it's easier when the guy on the other side of the table grew up in the same town. Sadly he is so much younger than I, that we only knew a few of the same teachers--Mr. Sloan and Ms....

I'm getting sick and tired of everyone talking about how much worse shape we would be in, but for (fill in the blank: TARP, stimulus, auto bail outs...) Even if it's true, it doesn't make anyone feel better. That's what I keep thinking when Obama Administration officials sound like cheerleaders...

Dressing up executive compensation as the salvation of regulatory reform is the best Halloween costume of the year.

Limiting executive compensation is a terrific way to appease the masses and make it look like you're doing something without having to embark on the hard work of true regulatory...

Channeling his inner Russian emperor, Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg's compensation edict shook top executives at some of the nation's biggest banks. The Special Master will cut the cash component of salaries for the top 25 earners at the companies he oversees: AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial,...

Today is the 22nd anniversary of "Black Monday," when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6% in one day. Over two decades later, people are waking up to another form of Black Monday -- one where we are asked to make sense of the mind-blowing...

While everyone has been focused on big bank earnings this week, I've been thinking about small banks. The FDIC expects that these institutions will continue to be under pressure from bad loans made in the boom times. Soon, we're going to see the 100th bank failure in...

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Wells Fargo plans to raise interest rates on all credit card customers by 3% on November 30^th. Funny coincidence-House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank wants to speed up the enactment of the Credit Card Act from February 22, 2010 to December 1.

Sometimes...

The US stock market was down the first two days of October, which has been a month of some scary markets for investors. Sure, statistically speaking, September has actually been the worst month for stocks, but October has seen some wild rides.

Ken Lewis, the embattled CEO of Bank of America has always been full of surprises. It sure took my breath away when Lewis bought Countrywide Mortgage on the eve of the biggest mortgage meltdown in US history, not to mention his shot gun $50 billion acquisition of Merrill...

I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides which you see I have confidence in me

-from The Sound of Music (music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II)

Ah, if only life were a...

You probably don't realize it, but there is a mammoth securities regulator that is not a government entity. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), is the largest independent regulator for all US securities firms, overseeing nearly 4,800 brokerage firms, about 173,000 branch offices and approximately 647,000 registered securities representatives.

When the interest rate decision is announced today, the Federal Open Market Committee will most likely leave its current monetary policy unchanged and say that "economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period."

The wait is over: the Senate Finance Committee's formal health care bill has finally arrived! Chairman Max Baucus unveiled the Senate version, "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009," which sounds eerily like a breakfast cereal. The 10-year $856 billion Senate plan is a $44 billion savings from the number...

It's just so predictable: use the anniversary of Lehman's bankruptcy to talk about regulatory reform. President Obama's Financial Rescue and Reform speech today at Federal Hall (a beautiful building downtown, that's worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood) was laden with some harsh words: "there are some...

It's no wonder that Americans are struggling to understand health care reform: the stuff is complicated and dense. I learned my lesson on The Early Show this morning, when trying to succinctly describe who will pay for the plan.

When President Obama speaks tomorrow night, here's what he won't say: your taxes are going up. OK, maybe the lowest echelon on taxpayers will be spared, but anyone who does the simple math can see that the amount of money necessary to finance health care reform, along with existing...

Another Friday, another employment report. The results are in -- and the Labor Department said that 216,000 were given the heave-ho last in August, bringing the total number of Americans out of work since the beginning of the recession to 6.9 million. Yes, that was good news.

When I...

Last Friday, I noted that taxpayers had made money from TARP. Nobody was talking about this too much -- maybe a little August-itis or attention on the Kennedy funeral. That changed yesterday, when the New York Times reported that profits from the eight banks that have fully repaid...