Paulson reworks financial bailout: New targets for investment… even you can apply! Markets plummet… Bill Bonner on when stocks will be cheap enough to buy. OECD predicts global recession… Germany admits contraction has already begun. Wall Street CEOs forecast “rapid,” “deep” U.S. recession. Joel Bowman on a peculiar hissing sound emitting from the Middle East.

For an erudite debate over the Paulson doctrine, we turn to our friends at The Onion this morning:

The Money Hole.

It’s not any more complicated than that, is it?

Indeed, Paulson and company announced a TARP switcheroo yesterday. Now the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) is suffering a serious case of the STD “mission creep.”

Instead of purchasing troubled assets from banks, the Treasury,

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There will be a tug of war today in Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) as two pieces of news are out:- Merrill Lynch is downgrading the stock to Underperform from Neutral while lowering their tgt to $7 from $15. LVS needs to raise capital to cure US covenants, which it expects to violate in 4Q, and to fund growth projects. In base case scenario – building only Cotai sites 5/6, Singapore, Four Seasons condos and a reduced PA casino – Merrill estimates LVS needs to raise $2.75bn ($750mn to maintain covenant compliance, $2bn to fund growth). Their $7 PO assumes a common equity offering at $5.62, a 20% discount to the 11/7/08 close.Capital raise, growth pipeline curtailment necessaryFirm estimates LVS will need to raise $750mn to $3.5bn in the form of convertible bonds, common/preferred equity, PIPE, or subordinated debt. This range encompasses sufficient capital to maintain ...

As my partner, Aaron Katsman, wrote about yesterday, IOI is spending two days at the President of Israel Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow conference.

Before I write about how U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the delegation of businessmen/women, philanthropists, state leaders and ex-state leaders, I wanted to say that you can get a feel at these type of feel-good, semi-self congratulatory events regarding who’s hot and who’s not. While casino mogul and Forbes Top 10 holder Sheldon Adelson (LVS) walked the floor as did luminaries like Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, and Bank of Israel’s Stanley Fischer, when Google (GOOG) founder Sergey Brin entered the cocktail room, the whole room hushed as bigwigs jostled to get close to him. Interesting. He’ll be participating on a panel tomorrow entitled “The Revolution of the Internet and the

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