• JPMorgan Chase, American Express and Morgan Stanley all announced plans to raise fresh capital today, so they're prepared to repay the taxpayer money they've received as soon as Washington gives them the go-ahead. [WSJ, BN]
• Related: The Federal Reserve says next week it will announce an initial set of banks that have been approved to exit the bailout program. [NYT]
• Citigroup has stopped paying out massive severance payouts to a handful of execs who recently left the company. Is it legal? Not really, but they're betting that it would be too embarrassing for them "to file lawsuits against the struggling, taxpayer-backed company seeking the money." [WSJ]
• Ex-Bear Stearns chief Alan Schwartz is joining Guggenheim Partners. [WSJ]
• After a good day on Monday, stocks are taking a breather today. [NYT]
• GM says it has a deal to sell Hummer, but won't disclose the buyer. If you were buying Hummer, would you want your name publicized? [WSJ]

• John Thain is striking back at Bank of America in an effort "to restore his sullied reputation," and accusing BofA's CEO, Ken Lewis, of lying. [WSJ]
• Thanks to rising profits, employees at several banks are on track to earn as much money this year as they did before the financial crisis. [NYT]
• UBS's head of investment banking, Jerker Johansson, is stepping down. [DB]
• Steve Rattner caught a break on Friday when Quadrangle Group investors decided not to shut down his scandal-plagued fund. [NYT, NYP]

• A battered Lehman Brothers plans to spin off the majority of its real estate investments into a new company and sell more than half its interest in its investment management division. The bank also predicted a third-quarter loss of $3.9 billion. [WSJ, Dealbook]

• Merrill CEO John Thain is responding to critics and disputing "notions that he misled investors about his intentions to raise capital." [NYT]
  

• The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to a four-year high of 5.7% during the month of July. [WSJ]

• For his next act, former Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz may jump to private equity. [NYP]

The Wall Street Journal begins a three-part series on the downfall of Bear Stearns today: "Months before regulators pressured the firm to sell itself, nervous traders futilely begged Alan Schwartz and his predecessor, James Cayne, to raise more cash and slash Bear Stearns's huge inventory of mortgages and the bonds that backed them. At least six efforts to raise billions of dollars—including selling a stake to leveraged-buyout titan Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.—fizzled as either Bear Stearns or the suitors turned skittish. [WSJ]

Currently an executive chairman of Guggenheim Partners LLC, Schwartz is famously known as the last CEO of Bear Stearns before its acquisition by JPMorgan Chase in 2008—a sharp fall that would prove catalyst to the 2008 Wall Street risk management meltdown and corresponding global financial crisis.