BlackRock and Larry Fink are under media scrutiny from various angles.

The FT locates a wise Swabian housewife and asks her about the financial crisis.

Dubai fires the man in charge of getting it through said crisis.

Woodrow Wilson was the world’s first Twitterer, says Nick Carr.

David Carr feels the New York Times will survive.

Michael Lewis does not want to bet against Warren Buffett (via Felix Salmon).

A piece by me on Madoff and Mr Merdle.

“I’m going to need to learn about merchant banking again and they are going to have to learn to have some old idiot like me who actually asks what they are doing.”

- Johann Rupert, the 58-year-old South African billionaire who has invested in the former Lehman Brothers private equity business.

Prosecutors alleged that Mr Sgarbi, who worked for Credit Suisse in teh 1990s and speaks six languages, seduced a string of married women by claiming to be a kind of secret agent during visits to luxury spa hotels.

- FT story on the trial of Helg Sgarbi in Germany

Those who sound the death knell of market capitalism are therefore mistaken. This was not a failure of markets; it was a failure to create proper markets. What is to blame is a certain mindset, embodied not least by Mr Greenspan. It ignored a capitalist economy’s inherent instabilities – and therefore relieved policymakers who could manage those instabilities of their responsibility to do so.

- FT editorial on the financial crisis

Sony’s PlayStation 3 is not doing very well at all.

Bernard Madoff’s alleged “giant Ponzi scheme”.

Accel Partners raises money, unlike others.

The wiser part of John Thain’s head prevails.

The Mumbai terrorists used VoIP phones.

Arun Sarin could turn up at Yahoo.

Trustworthy news is for the upper-middle class.

They hang pirates, don’t they?

Houghton Mifflin stops buying books.

Blu-Ray: “Everything is coming together. The only dark cloud is the economy.”

Reader’s Digest: “We’re completely uncool and we embrace that.”

David Carr is seduced by Google.

Murdoch keeps faith with Ailes.

At the soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo.

Citigroup is in a bad way.