Naked Capitalism has a somewhat speculative but persuasive take (via Vu) on why the government still isn't breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks.

...the government’s failure to break up the insolvent giants – even though virtually all independent experts say that is the only way to save the economy, and even though there is no good reason not to break them up – is nothing new.

William K. Black’s statement that the government’s entire strategy now – as in the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are ("the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts") makes a lot more sense.

Friday!

* 'Decision to end Reading Rainbow traced to a ‘shift’ in priorities during the Bush administration.' That bastard!

* "Too big to fail" is so 2008. Via Ezra Klein.

J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.

A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.

* No Senate Democrat has gone on record as opposing the public option. More and more I think the public option will pass using reconciliation. I haven't heard a single persuasive counterargument to doing it this way, and Obama and the Democrats are too all-in to let health care die altogether.

* Also in health care news: Steve Benen announces the death of the public option and the rise of the free pony option. Sounds a little bit like socialism to me.

* WAKE UP SHEEPLE. THE OLIGARHY IS REAL.

* Snow Leopard reviews. I've installed this on both our Macs and so far everything appears to be almost exactly the same as before. Disk Utility works much better, which is nice. And a few menus that used to be white are now black. Believe the hype.

* And io9 has your TV science fiction themes by the numbers. We are truly in the dark age of televised time travel.

Nobody is happy about the terms of the Citi group bailout, which appears to be a simple handover of cash with no strings attached at all. When we give a company $7 billion more than it's actually worth because it's "too big to fail," that shouldn't be giving anymore—that should be buying. Mark Thoma has your link roundup, with more commentary from Matt Yglesias, Paul Krugman, Kevin Drum, and Marginal Revolution. The word of the day, you'll find, is "ugh."

Before you throw this letter into the proverbial round file, let’s be clear: this is the first time I have ever asked for a bailout from the Federal Reserve. I know what you’re thinking. Why do I deserve your largesse, and I do mean largesse, since I’m asking for five million big ones? The answer is simple. Like many of our nation’s financial institutions, I am simply too big to fail. If investors were allowed to witness the collapse of Freddie, Fannie, and then Andy, I can’t begin to describe what havoc it would wreak on their already frayed nerves. Actually, I can describe it: global financial calamity. I think we can both agree that, to dodge this bullet, ten million dollars is a small price to pay. (I know that I originally asked for five, but since I started writing this letter my financial situation has deteriorated in grave and unexpected ways.)

Andy Borowitz is too big to fail. In the New Yorker, alongside John Cassiday's claim that the Lehman Brothers collapse gave the election to Obama (see also Krugman last night) and a fascinating article on the legal intricacies of trust funds for dogs.

Is it right to give so much money to a dog—or to dogs generally? And what is the limit of such dispensations to pets? Will there come a time when dogs can sue for a new guardian—or to avoid being put to sleep? One philosopher draws a distinction between the needs of Trouble and those of dogs as a whole. Helmsley “did a disservice to the people in the dog world and to dogs generally by leaving such an enormous amount of money for her own dog,” Jeff McMahan, who teaches philosophy at Rutgers University, said. “To give even two million dollars to a single little dog is like setting the money on fire in front of a group of poor people. To bestow that amount of money is contemptuous of the poor, and that may be one reason she did it.

...

Throughout her life, Leona Helmsley demonstrated not just a lack of affection for her fellow-humans but an absence of understanding as well. The irony is that, for all that her will purports to show her love for Trouble, Leona didn’t seem to understand dogs very well, either. “What is funny about giving all this money to one dog is that it doesn’t deal with the fact that the dog is going to be sad that Leona died,” Elizabeth Harman, who teaches philosophy at Princeton, said. “What would make this dog happy is for a loving family to take it in. The dog doesn’t want the money. The money will just make everyone who deals with the dog strange.”