Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former Goldman banker tapped to lead the $700 billion bailout? His 1991 yearbook features quotes from AC/DC and Rush as well as a giant picture of a Ferrari. [Gawker]

The Post followed up over the weekend on our scoop last Friday that Carl Icahn is in the process of selling his 177-foot yacht for $37.5 million. Despite the fact he's taken a beating in recent months—his Icahn Enterprises is down 76 percent this year and he's lost a fortune with investments in Motorola and Yahoo!—Icahn's yacht broker claims the billionaire is selling the floating paradise to buy an even bigger yacht, which he plans to rent out to others to cover the operating costs. Who knew there are lots of people in the market these days for $250K-a-week yacht rentals? [NYP]

♦ John Thain says he expects "thousands" of job cuts will follow Merrill Lynch's merger with Bank of America. [Bloomberg]
♦ Another day, another bailout: The Netherlands will inject $13.4 billion into ING. [WSJ]
♦ GM is having difficulty acquiring Chrysler because it can't come up with the financing. [WSJ]

There's nothing like a truly excellent goodbye letter. One case in point is a rambling missive to the world from former hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde, who closed shop last month after deciding that it was just too risky to keep doing business with banks. Specifically, he calls out the, "low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

As is our custom, we gave Dick Fuld a call this afternoon to see how his brave assistant was holding up. And what do you know? The disgraced chief executive of Lehman Brothers wasn't in the office when we called at two o'clock, nor was his assistant. She was picking up the phone yesterday. Today? Voicemail! Good night and good luck, Dick. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to see you again soon (in Foley Square, quite likely) in the near future.

Just as it is often said that plastic surgery advanced dramatically after World War II when doctors treated so many wounded soldiers, in the future people will look back on the Great Crash of 2008 and say: That's when the hoards of emotionally battered traders helped us truly understand how the brain behaves when subjected to total, utter and continual freakouts! Today Time devotes some attention to the amygdala, the little part of the brain "that takes over when we are frightened."

The Hong Kong-based clothing retailer Giordano International—"the Gap of Asia"—has a new line of crisis-themed t-shirts planned for Halloween. Think it's in poor taste? Not at all. It's supposedly designed to cheer you up. "Giordano has chosen a brainy way to lift spirits with 'Halloween HalloTees' that are equally stylish, casual and spooky," the company said in an official statement.

New York's Steve Fishman casts further doubt on the rumor that Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld was punched in the face at the company gym just after the bank filed for bankruptcy. The evidence is pretty conclusive, too: The episode was supposed to have taken place on a Sunday, but Lehman's gym isn't even open on Sunday. [Daily Intel, previously]

Jim Cramer should really consider renegotiating his contracts with CNBC and New York magazine: If the drop in the stock market really had him worried about how he'd pay college tuition for his two daughters, perhaps he should consider approaching CNBC chief Mark Hoffman or New York editor-in-chief Adam Moss about a raise? Something tells us that no matter what happens in the markets, the former money manager and TheStreet.com co-founder won't be filling out financial aid applications in the near future. But what a clever way to relate to the middle-aged women turning into the View!

♦ The Dow's huge drop yesterday led to an massive sell-off overnight in Asia. What will happen today is anybody's guess. [Marketwatch]
♦ Citigroup reported a $2.8 billion loss for the third quarter. [WSJ]
♦ Merrill Lynch did even worse, reporting $5.2 billion in losses for the quarter. [Bloomberg]

The only people who have seen their career prospects rise exponentially in recent weeks? Those "experts"—usually researchers in economics or psychology—who can explain why a big bunch of men in suits got so drunk on cash that the country is going to have the saddest Christmas ever. It must be great to wake up to emails from journalists eager for authoritative quotes about how and why the meltdown happened, especially when you can imply you warned of problems ahead, but no one listened!

Last week Jim Cramer set off a firestorm when he appeared on the Today show and recommended that investors take every penny they'd need for the next five years out of the market at once. If you were foolish enough to heed Cramer's advice and you sold your holdings late last week, you would have missed out of yesterday's historic rally, of course, proving once again that Cramer's track record predicting the markets is about as distinguished as George Bush's record charting the war in Iraq. But it gets better. Instead of owning up to his mistakes or simply suggesting his advice may have been a bit rash, he's changed his tune once again. According to Cramer, we've reached "the beginning of the end of the crisis." Video after the jump.

You don't have to just rely on the government to fix the economy. You can play a part, too, by lending a helping hand to a former employee of Lehman Brothers. How, you ask? By picking up some of the junk ex-Lehmanites are now selling on Ebay. On sale today: a Lehman Brothers evacuation kit, which was handed out to employees after the attacks of Sept. 11 (but clearly wasn't much help when it came to evacuating employees from the credit crisis); a Lehman mousepad, which comes along with a snazzy pen; a Lehman lanyard which you can use to hang an ID card around your neck (and which, if you don't buy, could very well be turned into a noose in the near future); and this card which was used in the Lehman Brothers cafe at 745 Seventh Avenue: "Like Lehman Brothers, this card has no more remaining value."

♦ In a extraordinarily bold move, the U.S. will use $250 billion to take equity stakes in major financial institutions like Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase as part of an effort to restore confidence in the system, unlock the credit markets and "avoid financial collapse." [WSJ, NYT]
♦ The government's move isn't unprecedented, although not everyone is very happy with the "partial nationalization" approach. [NYT, WaPo]
♦ Global markets continued to rise overnight as investors responded to news of the government's plan. [Bloomberg]
♦ Notwithstanding the bailout, some hedge fund titans like Steve Cohen, John Paulson, and Israel Englander are staying on the sidelines and keeping their billions in cash. [WSJ]

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson rounded up all the major banks for a big meeting Monday and all but told them they'll collectively be accepting $250 billion in government capital. The idea, of course, is to get banks lending to one another and to businesses again, by injecting not only money but also a measure of confidence into the banking system. Because while the Dow bounced back 11 percent today, its most dramatic gain since 1933, the market is still off sharply this year. (The chart above shows three months of the S&P 500, still poised for its worst yearly loss since 1937.) In addition to liquidity, Treasury is also providing some lavish new guarantees, which has the media scrambling to pick up the inevitable new angle: We're inflating another bubble here!

Lies! Today, they spread everywhere instantly thanks to the internet, that wondrous web of computers full of lies. That's how a fake rumor about Steve Jobs having a heart attack can momentarily cost Apple billions of dollars in market cap. But don't blame the internet—blame the inherently wicked hearts of mankind. Because people have been running these same types of media scams to manipulate financial markets for at least 144 years:

No photos of sad traders today: The Dow posted its biggest one-day jump in history, rising nearly 1,000 points after the central banks pumped billions into the system and various European countries announced plans to guarantee loans and prop up ailing banks. More photos of cheery traders after the jump. [NYT, WSJ]

Asian and European stock markets are posting gains of 4 to 10 percent this morning thanks to a coordinated effort among several governments to recapitalize banks and insure interbank loans. The futures market is predicting a similar rise for U.S. stocks. For a few precious hours, at least, you'll be able to imagine that the worst of the crash is behind you. But heed the all-knowing Web photo editors, who time and again this morning have selected only slightly less terrified stockbrokers to illustrate their market recovery stories (see left). Maybe their enthusiasm is tempered by that story in the Wall Street Journal this weekend in which 18 economists said we've been doing the bailout all wrong:

The Great Depression wasn't all bad! There was jazz, big band, cabaret, Irving Berlin and tops and tails! Art deco and modernism! So as we slide toward economic catastrophe, let's all nostalgically embrace the elegance of the era so we can stay in denial about the hobos, soup kitchens and fascist and communist rebellions that will soon be upon us. We've already suggested staging rent parties and carrying flasks, plus some songs about hard times and various relevant movies. But nothing quite says "Great Depression fun" like Weimar-era cabaret, which is probably why Max Raabe and a Berlin orchestra are again traveling around America and calming the former middle class with pop songs remade to sound at home in 1930s Berlin. Raabe's Depression-ey cover of Spears' "Oops, I Did It Again" is just the thing to put on your "turntable" when friends gather for some moonshine in your Victory Garden. It's like Wall Street is serenading you! Sample the song after the jump.

How do you know the economy is really screwed? Hedge fund managers start going to church. [NYP]