• Wall Street retreated this morning after a four-week rally amid concern about the banking sector and after IBM's attempt to buy Sun unraveled. [WSJ, CNN]
• The latest Washington official facing questions about potential conflicts of interest: Larry Summers, who collected $5.2 million in 2008 working one day a week…

• Yesterday the House approved a 90% tax on bonuses paid to execs at certain firms that received government aid. Now some lawmakers are talking about banning all bonus payments at bailed-out firms. [Reuters]
• It's unclear if the 90% tax will hold up in court. It's also possible it will do more harm than good and…

• Have you heard? Our banks are insolvent. Happy Friday to you, too. [NYT]
• The markets are down this morning as the House and Senate prepare to vote on the $789 billion economic stimulus package. [CNN]
• It's still unclear whether Wall Street got the message that "that high living on the corporate tab is now…

♦ 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…

♦ 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…

♦ 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…

♦ AIG is already running out of the $123 billion in cash it was provided by the Federal Reserve, which means the authorities are slowly waking up to idea that something else might be going on. [NYT]
♦ The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter as consumer spending declined at the…

♦ Citigroup dropped efforts to block a deal between Wachovia and Wells Fargo yesterday afternoon; it will, however, continue to press ahead with its $60 billion lawsuit. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack is back on the defensive today after the bank's shares dropped nearly 26 percent yesterday to $12.45, the…

♦ The world's central banks are joining together to carry out a coordinated (and unprecedented) cut in interest rates, part of a plan to restore confidence in the global economy. [WSJ, NYT]
♦ Speculation that Morgan Stanley's deal with Mitsubishi UFJ had fallen through led to a huge drop in Morgan's stock price; the…