John Thain -- whom you may recall as the man who presided over the spectacular implosion of Merrill Lynch -- is looking to have some new business cards printed up. Over the weekend, CIT Group (CIT) officially announced that its board of directors has elected Thain as chairman and CEO.

Due to his controversial past, the decision to elect Thain wasn't an easy one. After shelling out a small fortune to tart up his office digs at Merrill Lynch -- and doling out lofty bonuses amid the bank's hasty takeover by Bank of America (BAC) -- Thain became something of a poster boy for Wall Street excesses.

Last week, Borders Group Inc. (BGP) announced that CEO Ron Marshall was resigning as CEO, effective immediately, to go run A&P.

Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer Michael J. Edwards was promoted to CEO in the wake of poor results and rumors of a possible bankruptcy on the horizon. On Wednesday, the company's stock got a nice boost when Bill Ackman -- a major shareholder and major creditor of the company -- suggested that he would not push the company into bankruptcy.

This morning the big news of the day was the drubbing of European stock markets as fear spread throughout the region. Fear was generated by concern that some European countries could default on their sovereign debt. Among them are Greece, Spain, and Portugal.

Greece's budget gap is 12.7% of GDP Greece has to slash spending and may need IMF assistance.

Investors sold investment deemed risky such as commodities, gold and stocks and moved their money into bonds. This started a selling frenzy in commodities with oil falling $3.14 per barrel to $73.14 per barrel. Brent crude fell $3.79 per barrel to $72.13 per barrel.

Can you imagine this! American International Group (AIG) is paying its employees $100 million in bonuses.

This is after AIG was bailed out to the tune of $182 billion by the U.S. government. The government owns 80% of the insurance giant. AIG employees have agreed to a $20 million cut. However, some employees are screaming that that is not enough. They claim that their contracts dated earlier than the bailout must be honored.

At the height of the financial crisis, Bank of America (BAC) acquired Merrill Lynch for $50 billion. Over the past year, Merrill's ranks have thinned from 18,000 down to 15,000.

Merrill's "thundering herd," as it was once known, was a powerhouse dealing largely with retail customers. Interestingly enough, even with the advent of electronic trading, many wealthy clients prefer to deal directly with a broker. B of A has a big book of 17 million "mass affluent" customers who need advice and services. "Mass affluent" customers are those whose income is between $100,000 and $1 million in investable assets.

The Obama administration has a full-press program underway to reduce unemployment. One of their proposals is to provide $30 billion to community banks to spur lending to small businesses. The money would be transferred from TARP.

The big banks have been reluctant to lend to small businesses, instead preferring to use their money for in-house trading. This proposal from the Obama administration is viewed as an end-run around big banks.

The following story is overflowing with irony. The reason is partly because of one man's lack of irony: Hugh "Skip" McGee, the former head of investment banking at Lehman Brothers, sent a five-page screed to the board of trustees at his son's private Texas high school after a teacher referred to bankers as "sleazeballs". DealBreaker has published the letter in its entirety. If you have a lot of time on your hands, read and look for Skip's complaints about the lack of cross-dressing at the pep rally, among other things.

His demands? The teacher, the upper school principal, and the headmaster should all resign over the injustice. That's right: a former executive at Lehman Bros. is demanding accountability.

Cisco Systems (CSCO - option chain) shares are rising today after company CEO John Chambers said in an interview that tech companies often are among the first to see gains in a recovering economy as businesses upgrade their technology. This could be a good sign for the company, which is scheduled to report Q2 earnings on Wednesday evening. Analysts are looking for the company to post a profit of 35 cents per share on revenue of $9.4 billion, compared to a profit of 32 cents per share on revenue of $9.09 billion in the year-ago period. A good quarter announced last night by competitor Juniper Networks (JNPR) also bodes well for Cisco next week. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on CSCO.

If I was making my 2010 picks list today, I might have found a spot for Ross Stores (ROST), the holding company for Ross Dress for Less. Analysts have a hold or market perform rating on the stock, but that is meaningless to me. What does have meaning is 20% sales growth in a dismal year, contributing to a PEG ratio of .75 and an under market P/E of 12.66 (averaging trailing and future figures).

These are very good numbers, however, in reviewing some of the data points with Raphael P., a helpful broker in the Pleasant Hill, CA Wells Fargo (WFC) office, I was reminded that different financial sites have varying numbers. They usually vary by small fractions, as did the Wells data compared to the Aol (AOL) Money and Finance site, so I would encourage investors to check multiple sources.

Shares of Borders Group (BGP) tumbled yesterday after the company announced that CEO Ron Marshall was resigning, effective immediately, to become CEO of Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (GAP), the parent company of the perpetually struggling A&P chain of grocery stores.

Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer Michael J. Edwards will step in as interim CEO.

President Obama has been under severe pressure to rein in federal spending, both from Americans here at home as well as trading partners like China.

During his State of the Union message on Wednesday, Obama is expected announce a three-year spending freeze for 1/6 of the federal budget.

The proposal will include freezes in discretionary spending in the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture and Health and Human Services. The freeze would affect $447 billion in spending or 17% of the total federal budget.

The New York Times reports that "General Motors ended its search for a chief executive on Monday by naming Edward E. Whitacre Jr., its chairman and interim chief, to the job permanently, a person with knowledge of the decision said Monday."

And with that, GM's chairman will now be the company's permanent CEO. None of this is to cast stones at Whitacre's ethics or competence, or the work he's done at GM so far, but here's the truth: it is a pretty universally held principle of corporate governance that separating the chairmanship from the CEO is a good idea.

Conan O'Brien is to receive $40 million dollars to walk away from NBC. O'Brien's agreement would bar him from bad mouthing his NBC bosses.

There has been a two week battle between NBC and O'Brien over the network's plan to move the comedian to a later 12:00 am time slot. Part of the plan is to reinstate Jay Leno in his old time slot at 11:30 p.m. which he has held for 17 years.

As background information, Japan Airlines Corp. has been bailed out four times by the Japanese government in the past ten years. JAL's 2.3 trillion yen bankruptcy is the fourth largest in Japan and the largest non financial bankruptcy.

The fact that JAL has been allowed to fail, marks a shift in government policy. The four month old Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Yuko Hatoyama, has refused to bail out JAL. However, Hatoyama's government said it would provide the necessary support for JAL.

Baidu.com (BIDU - option chain) stock is trading lower today after the company's chief technology officer, Yinan Li, has resigned for undisclosed personal reasons. With this departure less than two weeks after Chief Operating Officer Peng Ye's resignation, analysts and traders alike are speculating that Li's resignation is related to the rollout of a new advertising tool that has given the company trouble. The WSJ (supscription required) also speculates today that BIDU shares may have over-reacted to the recent Google (GOOG) - China showdown. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on BIDU.

This morning, BIDU opened at $450.00. So far today the stock has hit a high of $452.02 and a low of $429.09. As of 11:55, BIDU is trading at $435.50, down $32.18 (-6.9%). The chart for BIDU looks neutral while S&P gives BIDU a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.