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The president's plan for General Motors and Chrysler, announced yesterday, continues to get top billing in the press. Obama took a hard stance with the struggling automakers, giving GM 60 days to come up with a viable, not to mention drastic, restructuring plan, and Chrysler 30 days. If the companies fail to do this, he would allow them to file for bankruptcy.

The Wall Street Journal leads its online-only coverage today with a look at dwindling TARP funds and puts its own math up against that of the U.S Treasury Department. According to the department, there's about $134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund, meaning that about 81 percent of the $700 billion program has been committed. However, according to Dow Jones Newswires calculations, which were seconded by Goldman Sachs, the government has only $52 billion or so left.

Obamanomics? Maybe so, according to CNNMoney, which leads its news roll with another mega "to-do" that has been added to President Obama's list: tax reform. The president has announced that he will form a task force that will aim to do much of what President Reagan did with his own Tax Reform Act, which is closing loopholes and fundamentally simplifying the tax code.

So much for the bonus tax. The Wall Street Journal leads off its coverage this morning saying that "Congress's drive to recoup bonuses at American International Group Inc. is slowing significantly as passions on the issue cool." A week ago, the House overwhelmingly approved a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on bonuses distributed to the wealthiest employees at TARP bailout firms.

Private investors are needed to buy as much as $1 trillion in bad bank loans, dubious mortgages, and other toxic debt.

The government has finally outlined a plan for the "toxic" assets on banks' balance sheets, and the Wall Street Journal and New York Times provide similar accounts of what's in store. Once dubbed the "bad bank," the program is now being sold as a "three-pronged approach" that will be announced as early as Monday. It will potentially offer "generous subsidies," such as low-interest loans, that could encourage investors to buy up the bad assets, the NYT writes.  

It's official: The Federal Reserve is a buyer. The business press leads coverage this morning with the surprising declaration by the Fed yesterday that it will buy as much as $300 billion in long-term U.S. Treasury securities and hundreds of billions more in mortgage-backed securities. The Wall Street Journal points out that with interest rates already close to zero, opening its wallet was one of the few options left to the Fed.

Working for a vilified corporate titan is not easy these days, but for AIG execs Monday was a day they probably should have stayed at home. Death threats against employees, possible fresh subpoenas, indignation from lawmakers, and a vow from President Obama himself to make the taxpayers whole again all added to the public drama around the stricken insurer's controversial $165 million bonus payout.

It may only be a small share of the $170 billion in total government assistance to the company, but the latest move by AIG to honor commitments to 400 employees with $165 million in bonuses has Treasury fuming.

Your pockets no doubt feel a bit lighter these days, but just how much wealth has been lost in the tumult of the economic downturn? The Federal Reserve has the answer, releasing a calculation of the incredible shrinking income of the American family on Thursday.

As early as Monday, the words rally and Citigroup in the same sentence would have been unthinkable, but the unthinkable did indeed happen on Tuesday. The markets posted their first sustained rally of the year after an internal memo from Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, in which the hobbled bank disclosed that January and February were profitable months, leaked onto trading floors.

The World Bank on Sunday delivered yet more bad news that goes well beyond evaporating stock portfolios. The current economic crisis, born in the United States with some dodgy home mortgages, has grown into "the first global recession since World War II." The resulting credit crisis is wreaking havoc on the developing world, threatening to "turn back the clock on poverty reduction by years," the Washington Post reports.