• Washington is now playing hard ball: The Obama administration has forced out GM CEO Rick Wagoner and now says the company has 30 days to finalize its alliance with Fiat if it expects to get more bailout cash. [NYT, WSJ]
• UBS plans to lay off as many as 8,000 more employees worldwide. [Reuters]
• Working at Goldman Sachs has its perks: The bank spent tens of millions bailing out several senior execs facing a personal liquidity squeeze, including former COO Jon Winkelried and general counsel Gregory Palm. [NYT]
• Bank of America plans to increase some bankers' salaries by as much as 70 percent to offset reduced year-end bonuses. [BN]
• The Blackstone Group turned down a request from regulators to disclose the performance of its buyout and hedge funds; Fortress, however, caved. [BN]
• Timothy Geithner says some financial institutions will still need a lot more government aid in the future. You're stunned by that, we're sure. [BN]

• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis has been subpoenaed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over bonuses and losses at Merrill Lynch. [WSJ, Reuters]
• Citigroup is raising more cash by selling off more assets. [WSJ, DB]
• More on the efforts to compel UBS to divulge the identities of 52,000 Americans suspected of using offshore accounts to dodge taxes. [NYT]
• Jon Winkelried may have left Goldman Sachs because he realized he wasn't in line to take over for Lloyd Blankfein as CEO. [Clusterstock]
• There's evidence that the credit markets are thawing a bit. [BN]
• The cost of living rose in January for the first time in six months. [BN]

Jon Winkelried suddenly announced yesterday he was retiring, and now there's more bad news for Goldman Sachs: CNBC's Charlie Gasparino reports that a number of partners at the firm have been forced to borrow money to cover margin calls. Several senior execs used Goldman stock to buy into hedge funds and the like, but with shares down 50 percent since last spring, "Goldman Sachs is in the awkward position of making margin calls on its own partners, who can't meet those calls because their alternative investments are underwater and they don't have enough cash on hand." How crappy a situation is this? Talk to Sumner Redstone. [CNBC]

Jon Winkelried, the co-COO of Goldman Sachs and one of the highest paid men on Wall Street, announced yesterday that he plans to retire at the end of the March. Why did the 49-year-old banker decide to call it quits? It's unclear, although the Times did suggest that Winkelried may have simply been worn out, which isn't too surprising given the past few months. Hopefully with a few weeks of rest, he'll be back to his old self—the sort of guy who dresses up as a Rasta for a costume party—soon enough. A few more pics of Jon channeling the ghost of Bob Marley (alongside the rest of the Winkelried clan) below.

• President Obama is unveiling a $75 billion plan today to help struggling homeowners. A press conference is scheduled for 12:15pm. [WSJ, NYT, CNN]
• The Dow fell 3.8% yesterday to close at its lowest point since November. How today goes hinges on the response to Obama's housing rescue plan. [CNN]
• More on the life and times of Allen Stanford, the Texas financier who may have presided over an $8 billion fraud. [BN, NYT, WSJ]
• GM says it needs another $16 billion to stay in business. Oh, but it's still going to slash 47,000 jobs and close five plants anyway. [WSJ, NYT]
• GE's Jeff Immelt is waiving his $11.7 million bonus. [FT]
• Home construction fell a seventh straight month during January. [WSJ]
• Former CNBC anchor Ron Insana is leaving SAC Capital. [DB]
• More on Jon Winkelried's retirement from Goldman Sachs. [WSJ]

Jon Winkelried, Goldman Sachs's No. 2 and Lloyd Blankfein's right-hand man, announced this afternoon that he's retiring from the firm. "Winkelried cited fatigue as the reason he is stepping down," reports the New York Times. Nothing, we're sure, that some downtime at his $38.5 million waterfront home in Nantucket or his sprawling horse farm in Colorado can't fix. [NYT/Dealbook]

• Goldman Sachs co-president Jon Winkelried (left) has cut the price of his waterfront mansion in Nantucket. Originally purchased for $7 million in 1999, Winkelried put the home on the market for $55 million in October 2008. He's now lowered the price to $38.5 million. [WSJ]
• A. Robert Towbin, a managing director at Stephens and the former co-chairman of C.E. Unterberg, Towbin, has sold his 2.5-acre property on West End Road in East Hampton for $26.5 million. That's $11 million less than what it was first listed for back in mid-2007. [WSJ]
• Brooke Astor's former duplex at 778 Park, which has yet to sell despite a substantial price cut—it was first listed at $46 million before the price was reduced to $34 million in October—has been pulled off the market. The listing should resurface with Kirk Henckels as the new broker. [NYO, Curbed]

You're going to be shocked to hear this, but it turns out lots of Wall Streeters are looking to sell their lavish, eight-figure homes, a process that isn't quite so easy given the state of the economy. Today's Wall Street Journal has details on a collection of former high-flyers at Lehman and AIG who are now (desperately) looking for offers. But not everyone is moving out because they're suffering! It's unlikely any one in New York is making more money right now than John Paulson, the hedge fund mogul who bet against the housing market and won big. (He'll probably continue to rake it in: Just today he announced plans to launch a new distressed investment fund.) Just in case you're still sitting pretty—or you're playing the lottery this weekend and you're an optimist by nature—you'll find details on four of the homes after the jump.

Yet one more Wall Street exec looking to take a little cash off the table: The Daily News Tribune in Massachusetts reports that Goldman Sachs co-president Jon Winkelried—pictured here with one of his many horses, Quintan Blue—has put his Nantucket spread on the market for $55 million. Winkelried, who took home more than $67 million last year, purchased the 5.9-acre waterfront property for $7 million in 1999. If he can find a buyer at the price he's seeking, the deal will go down as the biggest in Nantucket residential history. Photos of the spread after the jump. [Daily News Tribune via Dealbreaker]

Jon Winkelried