Some pertinent business news for your Wednesday morning reading... If you're hoping the government can step in and ease the financial crisis soon, don't hold your breath. Lawmakers say it's unlikely they'll pass any legislation this week. While lawmakers take a cautious approach, Warren Buffet is jumping in. His Berkshire Hathaway group will pump $5 billion into Goldman Sachs. He also plans to raise another $2.5 billion from a stock offering to help the ailing bank. Analysts say Buffet's involvement signals his confidence that things will rebound. With headlines like "Jackals Circle Washington Mutual", you get an impending sense of doom. However, analysts say things aren't as bad as one would think. The proposed government plan that would allow banks to sell bad assets to the government could work in the bank's favor. First thefts of copper wiring and pipes from homes, now this. Someone is stealing solar panels. Some of the thieves are taking them right off of houses, sometimes with the owners sleeping inside. Many of the stolen panels are being re-sold on the internet.

Here are some stories worth your time on this rainy Monday morning... How much is the government bailout of Wall Street going to cost? Anybody's guess is as good as yours. Some analysts say at least $700 billion, while others say it could top $1 trillion. That total is roughly equal to what it has cost the U.S. to fund the war in Iraq, and works out to $2,300 for every man, woman and child in America. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is lobbying foreign governments to adopt their own bailout plan to pump money into the world economy and steady the financial system. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are fundamentally changing the nature of their businesses. The two companies are becoming simple financial holding companies. That means they will no longer offer investment banking. The New York Times says the companies will be able to shore up their financial books through the move. They will also agree to more financial oversight from numerous government agencies and tighter regulations. However, it could have a major impact on their operations in Utah. Sachs and Morgan both operate industrial banks in the state. It looks like the two will get out of the industrial banking game as well, which makes keeping them here a very tall order.

Here are some stories worth a few minutes of your time on this Wednesday morning... In case you've just returned to planet Earth after a long vacation in the Horsehead Nebula, you know we've got an election coming up in a little over a month. Luz Robles of the Zion's Business Resource Center says this is a perfect time to get employees involved in the community. "Having an educated and civically engaged workforce benefits your business and your community," says Robles in today's Daily Pulse. To paraphrase LL Cool J, "Don't call it a bailout." The Fed stepped up yesterday and rescued AIG with a loan of $85 billion. In return, the government now owns 80% of the insurance giant. The move comes just two weeks after the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The New York Times calls it "the most radical intervention in the central bank's history." That wasn't the only action the Fed took yesterday. They also decided to leave interest rates alone. Some investors had hoped the Fed would offer up another interest rate cut. Some analysts say the decision to stand pat shows that the Fed no longer feels interest rate cuts will spur economic growth. Oil prices are falling. Yesterday, the price for a barrel of oil stood at just over $91 a barrel. That's the lowest point since February of this year when oil was just over $88 a barrel. Mixed economic news for Utah today. Job growth is anemic, but inflation is slowing. Utah's job growth was just 0.3% last month, which is a huge drop from a 5.4% growth in 2006. However, the Utah consumer price index move up just 0.1% last month due to falling gasoline prices.

Some news items you'll want to read this morning... The EDCU annual meeting was held last week, with a focus on climate change. The keynote speaker, Dr. Anne Smith vice president of consulting firm CRA International and an expert in climate change policy, told attendees “Your voices will be very helpful, but you need to be informed before you speak up.” Yesterday was an historically bad day on Wall Street. The Dow fell 500 points, the worst drop since 2001. Don't think the worst is behind us. There are growing worries that AIG could be "running down the curtain and joining the choir invisible" (that's a Monty Python reference, for those who don't understand). The Federal Reserve and two other banks are in talks to provide a $75 billion line of credit for the firm. AIG's possible demise could pose an even deeper problem for the U.S. economy. AIG is part of the Dow 500. The firm is worth nearly more than five times Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual combined. If AIG goes, it could drag the Dow down even further. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merril Lynch have local employees of the two firms wondering what their future will hold. Both firms operate an industrial bank in the state. It's not just the markets churning out the bad news. HP decided to cut nearly 25,000 jobs in an effort to become more competitive with IBM.

Looks like the credit crunch isn't just hurting big firms like Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch. Small businesses are feeling the pinch as well. CNN/Fortune reports that 65% of domestic banks have tightened their lending requirements for commercial loans to small businesses. That's up from the last survey in April. Ray Keating, chief economist for the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, a small-business advocacy group in Oakton, Va. says: "If you are dealing with a bank that isn't in trouble and you have a good track record and relationship with that bank, you'll have less of a problem getting a loan," he said. "But it's only expected that they will want more information to prove to regulators and investors that the loan is worth it. That means that it's a heck of lot tougher for startups and small businesses without track records to get loans." The story highlights a couple of entrepreneurs who had great credit histories who couldn't get loans because of the economic situation. You can read the full article here.

Fortune has an interesting article on "ChangeWave," which conducts a monthly survey of it's 15,000 subscribers about tech trends. "The bad news, based on the 4,416 responses it received, is that planned consumer spending over the next 90 days is about as low as ChangeWave has ever seen...The good news emerged when the 8% who planned to buy a laptop computer and the 5% who planned to buy a desktop were asked which brand they were considering. The number who picked Apple hit an all-time high for both laptops (34%; up 2 points) and desktops (30%; up 3 points). That’s a marked increase from the roughly 18% who said they planned to buy a Mac two years ago and the 28% who said they planned to buy an Apple laptop (or 23% who planned to buy a desktop Mac) in August 2007. As a VERY happy Mac user, I can only conclude that more people are understanding the benefits of a Mac and how easy they are to use. Read the whole post here.

At least once you've spent a few moments contemplating your work and mindlessly playing with a pad of Post-It notes. The guys who did the awesome experiments with Diet Coke and Mentos will rock your world with this.
EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo. Wow. Just...wow.

I am a huge gadget freak (just ask my wife). So, naturally I freaked out when I saw the new toy that Chuck Todd at MSNBC showed off. I love the fact that this looks like it can interact with solid objects put on the surface. (Hat tip to Lost Remote)

Yesterday the South Florida Sun Sentinel posted a story that United Airlines' parent company, UAL, was going to declare bankruptcy. The story was picked up by Google News, and set off a massive sell-off of UAL stock. The problem is, the story was six years old. Forbes has the incredible story... Its impact on United's stock was swift and terrible. In the span of 10 minutes, 24 million shares changed hands. The stock, trading at $12.45, crashed to $3, according to Nasdaq. So severe was the market's response that Nasdaq halted trading from 11:06 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The exchange says the rest of the day's trades will stand. This story highlights the awesome and terrible power of the internet. The story had no time or date stamp, and seemed fresh. That's why the Sun Sentinel posted the story. And since it was picked up by Google News, it gained an extra layer of authenticity. Unforunately for UAL, there's really no fail-safe mechanism to keep this sort of thing from happening. And now, that's $1 billion in stock value out the window.

Forbes is out with another list. This time it's the "10 Most Distressed Housing Markets". The magazine used to look at real estate deals in the 50 biggest metropolitan areas. Here are some of the cities and the percentage of home sales at a loss in the second quarter of 2008... Las Vegas - 69% Sacramento - 63.8% Riverside, CA - 65.1% Detroit - 56.4% San Diego - 54.4% The list also includes percentage of homes sold within a year of the previous sale, and median down payment.