Everyone wants a neat explanation of the panic that destroyed the economy and put the government in charge of Wall Street. Good luck with that! Here's a look back on the year money forgot.

On the September weekend when Wall Street went poof, a friendless Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old securities firm, couldn't get his phone calls returned.

Where is the government's bank-bailout money going? In part to pay for Wall Street banker Peter Kraus's $37 million Park Avenue spread.

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain didn't collect a bonus—his request for $10 million quickly turned into a PR disaster—but the same can't be said for some of the execs Thain recruited to the firm. Peter Kraus, who joined the bank in September, resigned last week after the sale of Merrill to Bank of America triggered a $25 million bonus payout, which the Journal helpfully points out, comes out to 0.1 percent of the total amount ($25 billion) BofA collected from American taxpayers as part of the bailout. An even more mind-numbing calculation: Kraus collected roughly $277,000 for every day he worked at the firm. [WSJ]

• Next in line for a bailout: Step right up, real estate developers! [WSJ]
• Currency traders have been least affected by the gloomy bonus season. [BN]
• JPMorgan is purchasing two business units from UBS. [MW]
• The banks that have received taxpayer bailouts paid their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and other benefits in 2007. [DB]
• John Thain's tarnished legacy at Merrill Lynch. [Bloomberg]
• 40 partners have bailed from crumbling law firm Thacher Proffitt. [NYT]
• Tim Geithner's daunting new job: Secretary of Saving the World. [Slate]

There was a bit of good news last week for Stan O'Neal, the former Merrill Lynch CEO who was ousted last year: It was reported that O'Neal was "poised to make a reappearance on Wall Street" with a new job at a hedge fund called Vision Capital Advisors. But there was another, less positive development for O'Neal last week as well. On Friday, O'Neal handed over full ownership of his duplex co-op at 941 Park Avenue to his wife, Nancy Garvey, a property worth as much as $20 million. Why the transfer? O'Neal has been named as a defendant in a series of class-action lawsuits against Merrill, which have accused him of misleading investors about the firm's exposure to risky mortgage investments; moving assets out of his name could be a way to shield them in the event a court eventually awards damages. But the move could also suggest that the couple is in the process of dividing up their assets as part of a divorce proceeding. We'll let you know if we hear more. In the meantime, the apartment transfer document is below.

Bank of America has confirmed that it plans to cut 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over the next three years to "eliminate redundancies created as a result of the merger with Merrill Lynch and to reflect the current recessionary environment." Happy Thursday! [NYT, press release]

We've never been much of a fan of those duffel bags you see investment banking analysts carrying on the subway. But now that banking is dead, does that mean the only people who will be carrying them in the near future will be ironic hipsters who picked up their green-and-blue Lehman Brothers duffels on Ebay? Those bags pale in comparison to some of the other items that banks have stamped with their logos, though. In honor of the demise of Merrill Lynch, we trolled around to find the three most unfortunate items the firm has unleashed on humanity over the years.

I recently reread Den of Thieves, the tale of how federal prosecutors brought down Wall Street giants Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, the emblems of the '80s takeover boom. It turns out that Boesky never actually said, "Greed is good," the line Michael Douglas uttered as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.

♦ Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain is tangling with the bank's board over a $10 million annual bonus he says he deserves for "saving" the firm and selling it to Bank of America. [Reuters]
♦ Ken Griffin's Citadel is closing up shop in Tokyo. [Bloomberg]
♦ UBS may be planning to shed another 4,500 jobs. [DB]
♦ Sam Zell's Tribune Co. has retained Lazard to assist the company with a possible bankruptcy filing. [WSJ]
♦ The outlook is increasingly grim for Wesley Edens' Fortress Investment Group: Shares have gone down more than 90 percent this year. [NYP]
♦ Plenty of problems also face Leon Black and his Apollo Management. [NYT]
♦ But it's been a good year for hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, despite the whole Ashley Dupre thing. [NYM]
♦ Stocks are expected to gain big today with the news of an auto bailout. [CNN]

♦ A bruising day in the markets is expected to follow the scary job news this morning: Employers slashed 533,000 jobs last month, making it the most jobs lost in a single month since December of 1974. [CNN]
♦ Merrill Lynch shareholders will vote on the bank's merger with Bank of America today. [DB]
♦ Things are getting worse for hedge fund king Ken Griffin: His Citadel Investment Group was down another 13% in November. [WSJ]
♦ Neel Kashkari says the TARP is working; he and Hank Paulson may be the only ones. [Bloomberg]
♦ Citi has closed on the sale of its German subsidiary to Credit Mutuel-CIC for $6.6 billion. [MW]

♦ Detroit's Big Three automakers presented new turnaround plans (and their request for $34 billion) to Congress yesterday. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
♦ Merrill Lynch plans to cut year-end bonuses in half. [Bloomberg]
♦ Now that it's turned itself into a commercial bank, Goldman Sachs is thinking about starting an online banking operation, too. [DB]
♦ Goldman is tapping Gerald Corrigan, a former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to serve as chairman of its bank holding company. [FT]
♦ Billionaire financier face-off: One of Carl Icahn's companies is suing a firm owned by Leon Black. [NYT, NYP]
♦ Ramius Capital, the struggling hedge fund operated by Peter Cohen, is closing four of its funds. [WSJ]

♦ Following a weekend of non-stop negotiations, a deal is now in place to stabilize Citigroup: The bank will get a $20 billion cash injection from the Treasury Department and the government will guarantee $306 billion worth of toxic assets. [Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ]
♦ The next group in line for a bailout? Home builders, who are now lobbying Congress for a $250 billion stimulus package. [WSJ]
♦ The U.S. economy may need $300 billion and $600 billion more to survive the crisis, says George Soros. [DB]

♦ Things may be about to get worse at Citigroup: The Times reports that the bank may be forced to lay off another 25 percent of its workforce as it deals with continued losses, a plunging stock price, and a lack of investor confidence. [NYT]
♦ In a show of faith, Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and three deputies bought a total of 1.3 million shares yesterday after the stock fell below $9 for the first time in 12 years. [Bloomberg]
♦ Is the $700 billion bailout working? Not so much: More than a month and nearly $300 billion into it, "many of the nation's financial arteries seem nearly as sclerotic as they were before. Some of them, in fact, appear to be hardening more." [NYT]

♦ American Express may be looking for as much as $3.5 billion in government assistance as the company struggles with reduced consumer spending and rising defaults. [WSJ]
♦ Hope is fading fast at GM. Shares fell to $2.92 on Tuesday, the lowest level in 65 years, and the company does not expect "to continue as a going concern" without a rescue plan in place by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing ahead with a plan to save the automaker. [NYT, Bloomberg]
♦ Who doesn't want a piece of the bailout? The line outside the Treasury Department in Washington is a long one. [NYT]

♦ Citigroup is in talks to buy a regional bank, says the WSJ. Which bank it is they're planning to acquire isn't clear. [WSJ]
♦ The bailout of AIG that was originally going to cost $85 billion and was later revised to $123 billion? Yea, well, now it's $150 billion. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
♦ October was another down month for hedge funds: Since the beginning of September, the average fund has shed 10 percent. [NYP, Bloomberg]
♦ The man who may go down as the hedge fund industry's big winner in 2009: Jim Chanos, whose Ursus fund is up 50 percent so far this year. [NYP]
♦ Asian stocks rallied on Monday after China announced a $586 billion bailout package. [Bloomberg]

♦ Treasury officials say as many as 1,800 institutions may apply for government investments in the next few weeks. [WSJ]
♦ GM hasn't been so lucky extracting cash: The Treasury has turned down a request by the automaker for $10 billion to help finance a merger with Chrysler. [NYT]
♦ Henry Kravis's KKR is delaying its plan to go public on the NYSE until 2009. [CNNMoney]

Think the meltdown on Wall Street will ruin bonus season for bankers in town? Not necessarily! Merrill Lynch has set aside $6.7 billion to pay annual bonuses. Goldman Sachs plans to dole out $6.85 billion in total, an average of $210,300 for each employee. And Morgan Stanley has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person. And you were concerned the $700 billion bailout would be misspent. [Bloomberg]

♦ Yesterday's sell-off is expected to continue today. [WSJ]
♦ Even Goldman Sachs is cutting. The firm plans to cut 10 percent of its 32,000 employees. [WSJ]
♦ The glory days of hedge funds are over, as you're probably aware. [NYT]
♦ Credit Suisse reported a $1.08 billion loss during the third quarter. [DB]
♦ The inquiry into the financial crisis on Capitol Hill continues. Today's guest piñata will be Alan Greenspan. [NYT]

♦ Bad day ahead? Stocks fell sharply in Europe and Asia overnight and ugly corporate earnings have investors worried. [MW]
♦ Wachovia, which is being acquired by Wells Fargo, reported a third-quarter loss of $23.9 billion. [Bloomberg]
♦ Yahoo says it will lay off 10 percent of its work force. [NYT]
♦ Federal prosecutors looking into the collapse of Lehman have subpoenaed other firms to find out if their analysts were misled by Lehman execs. [WSJ]