If you think the financial crisis on Wall Street was big news, just wait...the details of the "secret money funnel" from Washington to Wall Street are just coming out now.

Registration for Stock Summit 2008: Profits After the Fall opened to the public yesterday. We’ve already filled our first 500 spots, so I’ve made arrangements with my ISP to let more of you in the door. But with the number of investors who are signing up every day, I can’t guarantee you’ll get to sit in for Benson’s profitable insights unless you register now.

AIG just doesn’t get it. First, there was the corporate boondoggle to some spa in California, then there were the bonuses that were paid presumably out of TARP money.  Now an anonymous source is telling Bloomberg that 130 management level employees will be getting "retention" bonuses. 

Now that the election is out of the way, investors have nothing to focus on but the economy. That’s not necessarily a good thing.

It Couldn’t Get Worse, Right? WRONG.

You won’t find a better guide to profiting in these volatile markets than Benson George. He’s a seasoned trading veteran, having learned the ropes in the investment banking world, where his analysis helped businesses streamline their operations and boost profitability. In this exclusive interview, I ask Benson for his advice in trading a volatile market.  He also provides me with his two top stock picks.

Ahh, the newsletter crowd is getting bullish. My inbox is full of stock-picking gurus saying now’s the time to be bold and buy stocks. Fear is rampant, they say. Distant relatives are calling in the wee hours asking for advice. The VIX is at an all time high. 59% of respondents to a CNN poll feel a depression is either very likely or somewhat likely. And you know what? I agree. About being bullish, not about depression.

I can’t help but wonder if Monday’s bailout vote would have been different if the Dow Industrials were down 770+ points before they started the roll call.

So now the Treasury has a massive $700 billion bailout plan on the table. The idea is to create a government agency to deal with bad mortgage related debt, sort of like how the Resolution Trust Corp. (RTC) dealt with $394 billion in assets of failed banks during the S&L Crisis in the 80s.

On Monday, in a CNBC Europe interview, Jim Rogers wondered if the US was "...more communist than China." He was referring to the Fed’s bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and to a lesser extent, the bailout of Bear Stearns back in March. "Socialism for the rich" he called it.