But a rescue . . . is unlikely, the company said in unusually candid terms.

Goldman’s ability to reap large profits – its trading operations had net income of $6bn during the third quarter – without ramping up risk underlines the changing nature of trading on Wall Street.

Huh? Someone please explain the connection (if any) between a bank’s capital size and mix and its operating efficiency. If anything, relatively overcapitalized institutions would be expected to have more slovenly spending habits, right?

If this keeps up much longer, the seasonality explanation is going to stop sounding so convincing. As it is, some buyers are done worrying about another leg down:

But, please! Spare me the puffed-up quotes about the investment community’s “right to know.”

Gordon Brown has pledged tough action to clamp down on excessive remuneration for bankers as part of an international effort to rectify the systemic weakness that led to the global financial crisis.

Even now, the damning chart from Mark Hanson that the site helpfully provides isn’t so damning once you look at it. Sure, part of the recent rise in non-distress sales may be seasonal, as Hanson’s chart shows.

The bad news: the proposed rules are still kind of nutty. Why, for instance, should PE-owned institutions have to maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio of 10% (as the FDIC is lately said to propose) when everybody else can stay at 8%?

The problem is that modifying mortgages is profitable to banks for only one set of distressed borrowers, while lenders are actually dealing with three very different types. Modification makes economic sense for a bank or other lender only if the borrower can't sustain payments without it yet will be able to keep up with new, more modest terms.

The administration could help the economy, the markets, and its own reputation for good decision-making by announcing immediately its intention to nominate Chairman Bernanke for an additional term leading the Fed. He has done a superb job under the most difficult circumstances. No Fed in history has been more innovative and creative in dealing with unprecedented financial turmoil and global economic challenges. He deserves the nation’s gratitude. [Emph. added]

Wrong! Oh, Andrew Martin’s retailers-vs.-the-banks piece on interchange in Friday’s New York Times has the obligatory thumbnails of downtrodden merchants. But it’s shockingly even-handed, just the same:

Foreclosed house draws 135 offers

On Tuesday came word that the company can’t sell its International Lease Finance aircraft-leasing unit, once thought to be one of its crown jewels, and may instead hold on to the business and operate it for awhile longer.

[T]wo of the best and most objective forecasters, who are not connected to investment banks or to the CNBC noise machine, have recently called the upturn. Macroeconomic Advisers, the St. Louis-based consulting firm that compiles a monthly GDP index, reported to its clients Monday that while second-quarter GDP was tracking at negative 0.1 percent (recession), the third quarter was tracking at 2.4 percent growth.