The son of a soldier and nurse from small-town Mississippi, Ken Lewis likes to boast that he has worked since he was 12 years old, selling greeting cards door-to-door and pumping gas.

Amidst the ongoing furor over its multi-million-dollar bonus plan, American International Group has released a list of financial institutions it paid with proceeds from the federal bailout.

Thomas K. Montag, the new head of global markets at Bank of America Corp., had a very good year in 2008 despite the worldwide downturn in the markets.

Kenneth D. Lewis went shopping over the weekend and made a really big purchase.

Once again, John Thain is in the midst of a financial firestorm. His company, Merrill Lynch, agreed yesterday to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for $50 billion.

Playing out the final scene of an almost Shakespearean drama, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace today after revelations that he had been caught on wiretaps arranging to meet a high-priced call girl in a Washington hotel.

Three Wall Street executives were held up by a Congressional Democrats today as poster boys for executive compensation run amok.

Two of the three - E. Stanley O’Neal, chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch, and Charles O. Prince III, head of Citigroup - lost their jobs last fall after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market which they had once ridden to huge profits.

In the end, it would seem that the bottom line at Bear Stearns Cos. for James Cayne was the bottom line.

The investment bank’s leader went through public relations hell in November when The Wall Street Journal reported that he had spent a lot of time playing either golf or bridge in July while his company was struggling with losses in its sub-prime mortgage funds.

The appointment of John Thain to head troubled Merrill Lynch proves, yet again, the long reach of Goldman Sachs.

Thain, currently CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, began his career as an investment banker at Goldman. He went on to become co-president and co-chief operating officer.

As the New York Times reports, Thain was chosen not only for his success at the exchange, but also for his background at Goldman.

Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co., a major subprime lender, said Wednesday it would close 65 branches around the country and fire 1,600 workers as the mortgage meltdown continues to spread.

For at least two of the company’s directors, it must have seemed like deja vu all over again.

Richard Pratt and Bowers Espy were S&L regulators in the early 1980s as that industry was in crisis.