Administrative Note

I'm traveling this morning, so no blogging today.  It is a shame because there are some fairly juicy bits of news to discuss such as:

• Obama administration's efforts to curb executive comp across the entire financial services industry, even those that don't have government funds.  Goldman can go ahead and pay pack that TARP money, says Mr. Geithner, you still won't get big bonuses.  Nice to know that the guy who "forgot" to pay his taxes is deciding on executive comp.
• Retail sales shrunk .4%, worse than expected.  Why  economists were expecting consumers to rush out and buy stuff in this economy is a bit of a mystery.
• A Bloomberg confidence study shows that investors are confident about stocks for the first time since 2007.  And 2007 was a really great time to be bullish on stocks!