The White House released its big budget proposal today for fiscal year 2012, which begins in October. There's been talk about major cuts the administration would be making, and this proposal would supposedly cut $1.1 trillion in deficits over the next ten years. It mostly accomplishes that through a five-year spending cap on non-defense discretionary funding, an area that only accounts for 12% of the budget anyway and isn't related to America's long-term debt problems. But it may make President Obama seem tough to Washington Post columnists, so it must be done!

According to the state the Mississippi, guess who's stiffing victims of the Gulf oil spill? The state's Attorney General wrote yesterday that thanks to "sweeping deficiencies and violations of law," BP is allegedly "underpaying" legitimate claims. Surprised? [Bloomberg]

The U.S. stock market closed at its highest levels in two years! You still don't have a job, though.

Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein got a nice raise over last year's salary of $600,000 to $2 million, for doing "God's work." With bonuses and stock holdings and other scams, Blankfein raked in $13.2 million last year. [DealBook]

JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon is at Davos with all the other rich people talking about money, and whining: "This constant refrain 'bankers, bankers, bankers' is just unproductive and unfair. People should just stop doing that." Bankers are your friends.

Hollywood doesn't care about art—just money—so it's no surprise that many people are interested in knowing how much an Oscar nomination for Best Picture is worth in dollars. Finally, they have an answer.

There was a time when Wal-Mart thought it could compete with Target. Ha. What a mistake that was. It's not the faux-yuppie Target shoppers Wal-Mart wants now; it's the dollar store shoppers. Welcome to America the Poor.

[Billionaires are gathered in Davos, Switzerland to pat each other on the back for being rich and give long winded speeches about saving poor people. Image via AP]

A town in England is planning on heating its public swimming pool with excess heat generated by a next-door crematorium. Sure, it's creepy, but think of the money that they'll save! And the ghosts that they'll get to swim with!

On Tuesday Regis Philbin announced he was leaving Live! this year. According to TMZ, Regis wanted more cash, while ABC pointed out that Live! isn't doing well and Regis takes too much time off. Cut him some slack, he's 79!

On today's Oprah Winfrey Show, she and financial powerhouse Suze Orman performed a financial—and psychological—intervention on "Octomom" Nadya Suleman. The best part of the show, however, involved awkward lesbian jokes related to Suleman's addiction to approval from women.

Unsurprisingly, as she is the world's most perfect person, Gwyneth Paltrow really gets how hard it is to be a working parent. Luckily she's decided to document a typical mothering day in her newsletter Goop, for our benefit.

According to the number crunchers at Forbes, one-woman Vaudeville revue Lady Gaga will earn about $100 million in 2011 thanks to concerts, endorsements, and profits from her new album. But did they account for her considerable wardrobe budget?

We're just one week into the New Year and guess what? We have our first bank failure! The First Commercial Bank of Florida was closed by the FDIC on Friday, and it will only cost $78 million. Not bad.

Virginia Del. Bob Marshall has proposed a committee to explore "whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System." The Articles of Confederation ruled, didn't they?

On Monday, news broke that Goldman Sachs had invested $500 million into Facebook, valuing Mark Zuckerberg's social network at $50 billion. Tonight, Jon Stewart laid bare the real—and hypocritical—reason for the investment: an avoidance of government-regulated transparency. Uh-oh.

According to a new survey done by U.S. News & World Report, people under 30 have watched the current financial horrorshow unfold and have taken lessons from you idiots. Namely, they're going to pay down debt and save their money.

Looking for a way to prove how little you paid attention in math? The Mega Millions jackpot is now $355 million!

Brandon Beasley woke up one morning with a dream: to break the world record for the most quarters stuck inside one's belly button. In this video, Beasley acts on his vision by placing 20 of the coins into his stomach.

The stock market is positively sizzling today, as Wall Street's optimism pushed the Dow to a two-year high. Sounds tempting, eh? Before you wade in with your wallet, consider this short list of "Do's" and "Don'ts." Consider it now!