* BankUnited Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:BKUNA) became the largest US bank failure of the year, sold to private investors led by Wilbur Ross

* A Washington Post article said the administration if preparing to send General Motors (NYSE:GM) into bankruptcy as soon as next week: however, Treasury officials advised the June 1 deadline will remain

* AIG (NYSE:AIG) CEO Liddy announced plans to leave the company as soon as a replacement is found

* Citigroup (NYSE:C) announced likely savings of over $1 billion from technology savings this year

* Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced plans to purchase Cougar Biotech (NASDAQ:CGRB) for $1 billion, or $43 per share

* Sears Holding (NASDAQ:SHLD) reported earnings of 38 cents per share, ex-items, versus last year's 43 cent per share loss, and up from Street estimates of an 88 cent loss

* Gap (NYSE:GPS) announced first quarter earnings of 31 cents per share, one cent above Street estimates, versus 34 cents

...

“The Big Takeover” by Matt Taibbi is probably the best article written to date explaining the financial crisis and how we got to where we are now. Taibbi’s necessarily lengthy article explains the problems, names the “poipetrators”, and exposes all of the conflicts of interest— absolutely a must read.

AIG, Goldman Sachs, and J. P. Morgan turn out to be the major players causing perhaps the greatest financial crisis in modern history— even if the pain is unlikely to get near Great Depression proportions, the dollar losses to individual investors have certainly gone as far.

JPM was the brewmeister of the CDO, a vat full of various kinds of income securities, determined to be less risky because the income on most would almost certainly keep flowing— kind of like the once popular junk bond fund that Wall Street insisted was not risky …

Highlights include American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC).Is the House Proposing to Set Aside the Constitution?We need to set aside our self-righteous indignation with respect to AIG (AIG) paying bonuses for a moment.We are concerned with what could be viewed as House of Representatives attempting to set aside our Constitution with its proposed ex post facto "after the fact" bill.For a Democratic-led House HR1586 to have approved by a 328-93 vote ("yes" votes were 243 Democrats and 85 Republicans, with 6 Democrats and 87 Republicans opposed) to impose a 90% "punishment tax" on bonuses given to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at AIG (and other companies that received at least $5.0 billion in government bailout money) cheapens our entire political and judicial systems.We are only as trustworthy as our word. ...