Let's Wildly Speculate About Stuff

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In this case, Vikram Pandit's job security. You know it's coming (putting the under/over at a CNBC "Call Of The Wild" segment on the matter at 1 day, and taking the under) so we might as well kick things off here. For the record, we don't appreciate what appears to be a lack of support for our favorite elfin CEO from the Journal, which can kiss its free pass to the Give Vickle a Tickle Booth good-bye:

Among the question marks looming over the current discussions is the future of Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and the company's board.
Pandit's Future
In November, as part of the sweeping rescue, federal officials privately discussed the possibility of replacing Mr. Pandit, who became CEO in December 2007. But the government decided not to remove him, in large part due to a dearth of qualified replacements. Still, top government officials warned Mr. Pandit that a third trip to the taxpayer trough would probably cost him his job.
However, since the latest talks don't involve the possibility of Citigroup receiving additional government capital, it isn't clear whether Mr. Pandit's job is on the line. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment.

So, it kills us to even ask but:

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Let's Talk About: Basel III

The Fed last night unleashed eight zillion pages of Basel III implementation on the universe and I'm tempted to be like "open thread, tell us about your hopes and fears for capital regulation." So do that! Or don't because it is super boring, that is also a valid approach. Still I guess we should discuss. Starting slow though. Banks have to have capital, meaning that they have to fund some of their assets with things that are long-lived and loss-absorbing, like common equity, rather than with things that have to be paid back soon and at face value. The reason for this is that the rest of banks' assets are funded with things that we really do want to be paid back soon and at face value, like deposits, and if the value of those assets declines you don't want those deposits to be wiped out. The rules say that you need capital equal to a percentage of your assets. The game is deciding (1) what that percentage is, (2) what is capital (proceeds from selling common stock, and actual earnings, yes, but, like, deferred tax assets?), and (3) how you count assets (you might want more capital to shield you from losses in, say, social media stocks than you would to shield you from losses in Treasury bonds, so regulators use "risk-weighted assets," so that $1 of corporate bonds counts as $1 of assets, $1 of Treasuries counts as $0 of assets, and $1 of Facebook stock counts as $3 of assets*). Anyway, here are the required capital levels: