Cheat Sheet

Leaders at this week’s G7 meeting have agreed that banks must shoulder some of the cost of the financial crisis, but not on a method for enforcing this policy, an anonymous German official told Reuters. "There is a consensus that banks themselves have to contribute to pay for the financial burden of the crisis," he said, as Britain announced its plans for a 50 percent levy on major bank bonuses. On his part, President Obama has proposed new regulations requiring lenders to keep a certain percentage of loans they securitize on the books at all times, called by many a “skin-the-game” rule. The most viable international proposal seems to have come from Canada, which managed to avoid bank bailouts, even at the height of the crisis. “Canada has made a proposal, in which three points have been lined out, and which were supported. The first issue is that of capital rules,” said the official. “The second is to recreate a transparent securitization market. And the third is the sector of market infrastructure especially for derivatives.” G7 officials have also been invited by Germany’s finance minister to an upcoming Berlin meeting on financial regulation.

Even protests from within the Tea Party faction didn't dim Sarah Palin's headlining speech at the first national Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Palin told the attendees that "if there's hope for the tea party movement in Massachusetts, there's hope everywhere," reports The Huffington Post. The vice presidential contender also predicted that Obama's and the Dems' policies in Congress would be short-lived.

After a series of potentially crippling setbacks for Democrats, Barack Obama is urging his party to look on the bright side and at a meeting among party leaders on Saturday said, “We have to acknowledge that change can’t come quickly enough […] we can’t return to the dereliction of duty.” He also stressed the importance of bipartisan outreach in order to pass the long-debated health-care reform bill though Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was feeling less friendly and said of Democrats, “If they get past this arrogant phase that they have been stuck in about a year, if they can work their way past that and concentrate on the real problem which is cost, we are willing to look at it.” Even so, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine echoed Obama’s call for optimism saying, “the ghost of Harry Truman would kill us if he heard us complaining about having only 59 Democratic senators.”

Toyota’s recent fiasco with faulty pedals may be just one incident in a larger pattern of sloppy and slow responses to safety problems, reports The New York Times. Reports have found that, contrary to their initial statements, the company received reports in Europe back in December 2008 regarding the sticking pedals, but viewed the problem as a matter of “customer satisfaction” and not a safety defect. “We acknowledge that we could have communicated better as a company,” said a spokesperson. A similarly sluggish response occurred after engineers found problems with a steering mechanism in the Hilux Surf in 1996—the company fixed the problem in newer models of the car, but didn’t begin recalling older vehicles for another eight years. “Maybe they were a little ‘safety deaf’ in their North American office,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who took Toyota to task last year for failing to announce a recall to deal with the pedals.

One way to get around high ticket prices: stage your own event. Four disgruntled Tennessee tea party activists held their own news conference outside the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, calling out the “grassroots” event for its $550 price tag. “There are a lot of citizens in the state of Tennessee today who could not afford to be here… particularly in this economy,” said one. “They’re just as patriotic. They’re just as concerned.” Two of the protesters had helped plan the event early on, but resigned due to objections over the direction it was taking. The four Tennesseans even had harsh words for their movement’s political leaders, and one said, “We don’t need Sarah Palin to be the face of our movement. We don’t need Newt Gingrich or any of these other people, because these people are humans and they can fail. Our values will never fail us as long as we adhere to them.”

Contradicting rumors that his bonus would be six figures, Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein has announced his $9 million, no-cash bonus, the smallest payout in the company's history in a record year for profits. Goldman's board voted on the amount—which is in stock compensation, not cash—Friday afternoon, and gave the same amount to Blankfein's top lieutenants. Goldman has been under scrutiny for returning to high salaries after recovering from the credit crisis, but Blankfein’s $9 million clocked in far below the $17 million bonus given to J.P. Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon this year. Dimon and Blankfein took no bonus last year, but in 2007 Dimon racked in $39.1 million and Blankfein $68 million. While J.P. Morgan argues they let shareholders vote on compensation, the owner of NAB Research Nancy Bush says Dimon's "bonus looks to be 'in-between' to me," and that it shows, "a concession to Washington, but definitely not a 'bowing down.'"

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson recounts the high-pressure days in September 2008 when the entire financial system teetered on the edge of collapse in his new memoir, On the Brink, excerpted in The Wall Street Journal. Paulson recalls making the case to Congress for the Troubled Asset Relief Program when an aide passed a note saying John McCain was suspending his campaign in order to work on the crisis. Paulson thought it was crazy, and feared McCain’s gambit would send the economy into a tailspin. But it was McCain’s own campaign that faltered when he didn’t deliver at the meeting he had planned. Democrats set up their own political trap, with Obama saying a deal was almost ready when McCain sailed in to kill it. President Bush then asked McCain to speak, but, bizarrely, he demurred. The meeting devolved into chaos. Finally, Obama again asked for McCain’s thoughts. “As he spoke, I could see Obama chuckling,” Paulson says. “McCain's comments were anticlimactic, to say the least.” Congressional leaders began talking over each other. “It got so ridiculous that Vice President Cheney started laughing. Frankly, I'd never seen anything like it before... Finally, the president just stood up and said: ‘Well, I've clearly lost control of this meeting. It's over.’”

Shealah Craighead, Fox News Channel / AP Photo

Sarah Palin is regularly receiving briefings on domestic and foreign policy from a regular group of advisers and installing a television studio in her Wasilla home to reach Fox News with ease, but to what end? No one knows whether she's preparing for a presidential run, a lucrative position as a media figure, or a party activist. This week she's raising her profile significantly, with paid speeches to the Salina, Kansas Chamber of Commerce on Friday and the national Tea Party convention in Nashville on Saturday, as well as a campaign appearance to boost Governor Rick Perry in Texas on Sunday. According to The New York Times, her closest aides include Jason Recher, a former McCain campaign aide who clashed with his colleagues in 2008 over their handling of Palin. Neoconservative Randy Scheunemann, a former adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, provides her with foreign policy briefings while Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Dana Perino offer her advice as well.

Is the youngest generation of Emanuels—the Jewish Kennedys, led by brothers Rahm, Zeke and Ari—ready to dip their toes in politics? Dartmouth students held a candlelight vigil Thursday night to show support for staff members whose jobs may be eliminated as the New Hampshire college goes through a round of budget cuts. One leader of the event, organized by a group called Students Stand with Staff, was Gabrielle Emanuel, daughter of Zeke Emanuel, a senior adviser for health policy to the director of the Office of Management and Budget. “The non-unionized staff has been particularly anxious about their lack of job security and their lack of input in this process,” Emanuel told the college crowd. “They’re particularly vulnerable because they have no legal representation with the union.” Sounds like the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.

How long until he’s back on the green? Tiger Woods has reportedly left rehab in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, according to Radar Online. His wife Elin flew to the site earlier this week so the couple could fly home together. Woods will see his kids for the first time in a month after completing his rehabilitation at Gentle Path, which included group therapy and personal counseling. The couple, now surrounded by heavy security, will be spending some time alone together in an attempt to repair their marriage. Though Elin isn’t wearing her wedding ring, she’s reportedly called off divorce.

Alice Tan Ridley, the mother of Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe, didn’t give up her job following her daughter’s huge success in the lead role in Precious. Ridley has a popular act belting R&B tunes in the busiest subway stops in New York, including Times Square. "My name is not on Gabby's paycheck," Ridley cheerily told the New York Post. The former nursery school teacher made singing her full-time job 18 years ago, and has had gigs in Chile, Argentina, and Germany. Ridley’s singing helped Sidibe nab her breakout role. "Four years ago, they asked me to play the part of the mother [in Precious]," Ridley said. "But being a mom and teacher, I just couldn't play that part. It was just too hard… I read the book, and I gave it to Gabby. Her friends encouraged her to try out for Precious, and she got it."

Kyodo via AP Photo

The length and depth of a bow speaks volumes in Japan, and Toyota President Akio Toyoda's respectful dip is being dissected for its meaning in the wake of the company's admission of serious safety issues with its vehicles. Toyoda's bow at a news conference on Thursday was short, only about a second, and according to the L.A. Times, a longer one might have been viewed as an admission of guilt in lawsuits over Toyota's vehicles. Previous CEOs have bowed publicly to atone for their company's failings in Japan, including Katsuhiko Kawasoe, the former president of Mitsubishi, who apologized for a cover-up of defective cars that led to fatalities over two decades. A group of executives at a drug firm in 1996 that accidentally gave AIDS-contaminated blood to hemophiliacs fell to their knees and lowered their foreheads to the floor before families of the victims.

The group of U.S. missionaries charged with child kidnapping in Haiti will face three more days of hearings after being denied provisional release Friday, reported lawyer Edwin Coq. Neither Haitian officials at the courthouse nor the charged Baptists answered questions from journalists, but Coq maintains the group (excluding leader Laura Silsby) was not aware they lacked proper adoption papers, and he said, "It is scandalous that they are being detained." Although Coq argued for provisional release—a type of bail without money—the judge denied the request, and will resume hearings Monday. Silsby claimed the children were from orphanages, but at least 22 of the children had family. Some of their parents told the Associated Press they willingly handed them over so the Americans could take care of them. Their lawyer is arguing all but Silsby are innocent.

Members of the Tea Party movement announced plans to form a political action committee while gathered for their inaugural convention in Nashville, saying they will raise money and provide other forms of support for conservative candidates. The group aims to raise $10 million this year, and will also work on providing political consulting and campaign management to candidates. Mark Skoda, leader of the Tea Party group in Memphis, says candidates will be chosen on "first principles," and says if they "embrace those ideas not as a litmus test but as a sense of where we are as a movement,” the group will help them. Their first planned battle is against Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, and they will announce other Congressional races they plan to participate in later this month.