Big Pay Packages Return To Wall Street (WSJ)
Viva La 2007! "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm's $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal."

Merrill exec sounds bullish on future of BofA merger (Charlotte Observer)
Dan Sontag looks on the bright side re: Bank of Amerillwide. The future couldn't be possibly worse than the last several months, which were not unlike having hot coffee thrown on one's face during a parking lot brawl, an experience so traumatizing that no one wants to talk about it anymore. "People are really starting to move forward here," Sontag said in an interview with the Observer this week. "I see my group not wanting to talk about the rearview mirror as much."

Treasury To Name 9 Toxic Managers (WSJ)
The fate of the economy rests in your Power Point skills: "Potential managers made presentations to the government that were designed to measure whether they could handle the job. Firms considered include BlackRock Inc., Allianz SE's Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco; TCW Group; and Wellington Management, although it isn't clear who made the final cut."

Singh Hangs Up Stanford Logo (NYP)
Apparently he's not the man we thought he was. Two confidential things to Vijay: 1) you were paid to wear that thing, so god damn, you should have to wear it and 2) even after the 150 year sentence, the canasta player sponsored by Madoff Securities continues to sport his MadSec. Personally, we're typing this from a Bills Jersey which we'll continue to wear until the Big Guy is free. That's called loyalty, something you know nothing about.

Risk Cuts at Morgan May Lead to a Loss (NYT)
Sounds like it's time to give this guy a second shot.

Staffer At SEC Had Warned On Madoff (Washington Post)
"Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent e-mails to a supervisor, saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, documents show. But with the agency under pressure to look for wrongdoing in the mutual fund industry, she wasn't able to continue pursuing Madoff, according to documents and two people familiar with the investigation, and her team soon concluded its work on the probe. Walker-Lightfoot's supervisors on the case were Mark Donohue, then a branch chief in her department, and his boss, Eric Swanson, an assistant director of the department and Bernie's nephew-in-law."

"Bon" or "Non" Appétit? (PIMCO)
Bill Gross's buzz kill of the morning: "Greed will come again. But for now, the trend is the other way and it promises to persist for a generation at a minimum."