Obama, the Street Buster

The Wall Street Journal this morning scoops the details of President Obama's landmark plan to regulate Wall Street. According to the Journal, it amounts to no less than "the most sweeping reorganization of financial-market supervision since the 1930s, a revamp that would touch almost every corner of banking from how mortgages are underwritten to the way exotic financial instruments are traded." The most controversial pieces of the proposal, all of it to be announced on Wednesday, would be to put the Federal Reserve in charge of overseeing the largest financial services institutions and to give Washington the power to break up major companies "much like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. does with failed banks." Finally, the plan would include the appointment of a new regulator for consumer-oriented financial products.

To be sure, it's a slightly watered-down version of what some lawmakers had been calling for—more absolute powers to regulate big business. But it still has some bite. "It will make it much harder for large companies to be so overleveraged that they threaten the broader economy," the WSJ writes. Business Week wonders though whether the plan will really make for meaningful reform. The magazine notes that Congress is already getting cold feet about supporting such sweeping change, potentially sabotaging its best chance for financial reform. "With it may go a once-in-a-generation opportunity to aggressively tackle some badly needed changes in the U.S. financial system," the magazine writes.

The next act in the seemingly endless drama of AIG will kick off today. Former AIG CEO Maurice R. Greenberg, better known in the financial press and on CNBC as "Hank," is on trial today, accused of plundering $4.3 billion from a trust set up to pay top-performing AIG (AIG) employees, the New York Times reports. Greenberg and his attorneys contend there was no wrongdoing—that the $4.3 billion in shares were not held in a trust at all and that, besides, he had the authority to offload them. Time calls it "a battle over who's more deserving"—Greenberg or AIG. The accusations, from 2005, predate the collapse of AIG. Still, the NYT writes, "the trial may delve into the broader questions of who is responsible for A.I.G’s near collapse and whether, as chief executive of A.I.G., Mr. Greenberg was more preoccupied with financial maneuvers than with fostering sound risk management."

It's Paris Airshow time, and that prompts a number of Boeing-related stories from both sides of the Atlantic. The WSJ previews the "anticipated and long-delayed takeoff" of Boeing's (BA) most sophisticated commercial jet, the 787 Dreamliner, but notes that the Seattle plane manufacturer's strategy of looking to defense contracts to offset passenger jet sales "is being tested as military hardware spending is under pressure globally, at the same time commercial jet orders are slumping." Enter an unlikely savior in the form of Irish budget-airline Ryanair. It is in discussions with Boeing and Airbus about ordering some 300 aircraft in a potential deal that would "make the low-budget carrier more than double the size of British Airways," the Guardian writes. Ryanair has done better than most airlines during the current economic meltdown, expanding its business while other major players contract. If Ryan­air added another 300 aircraft, it would have just less than 600 planes in total, compared with British Airways' current fleet of 248. No wonder Boeing CEO Jim McNerney described the potential order as "the deal of the year."

Dutch satellite navigation maker TomTom is looking to raise $600 million through a new share offering to escape the mountain of debt it took on by acquiring digital map maker Tele Atlas in 2007, the Financial Times reports. TomTom's share price has plummeted nearly 66 percent in the past year as a result of concerns about its debt, but the stock price jumped last week after the company announced it would start selling a navigation application for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone—part of a strategy to diversify away from navigation devices for cars and return to its roots of building software, this time for mobile phones.

And finally, here's one more for the "Don't mention we're British" file. Chicago's famed Sears Tower is about to get a name change, soon to be rebranded the Willis Tower, after London-based insurance company Willis Group, the Guardian writes. A foreign brand on North America's biggest building? Cue a popular uprising on Facebook and among the Chicago-area press. (They've deployed the heavy artillery: "Big Willie" headlines.) The Willis Group's response? Play down the U.K. angle. Cheekily, the Guardian gives us a history lesson on just how British Willis is. "It famously provided cover for the Belfast-built Titanic," the newspaper writes, adding it's listed on the London Stock Exchange and its global headquarters are on Lime Street, the heart of the Square Mile.