- “I cannot figure out the thought process behind putting a consumer protection agency into the hands of the Fed,” FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz notes. “This is the same regulatory body that gave a total pass to the non-bank lenders at the heart of the subprime, APR and exotic loan issues.”
- Big banks are bad for the economy just like they were 100 years ago when their powerful influence shaped the financial playing field in their favor, NYT’s Economix blog says. “Just as it did 100 years ago, the consensus on big banks has to change. In this instance, either we break them up, or they will soon break us all.”
- “The longer the economy expands without boosting payrolls, the less likely that expansion is to be sustained,” Economist’s Free Exchange blog says.
- Investors are brushing aside the market’s late January/early February declines and seem focused on brighter times ahead. At least that’s what the latest American Association of Individual Investors survey says, as bearish sentiment fell to 26.2%, the lowest reading since early January and third lowest mark since early 2009, Bespoke points out.
- When Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs announced lawsuit against HTC for patent infringement, he said in no uncertain terms that competitors should stop stealing their technology. “That’s not the language of a licensing dispute or the beginning of a polite negotiation. That’s the language of a man aggrieved,” Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber writes.
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains in no rush to take his social networking behemoth public. Judging from the stock performance this year of the four big digital giants, Facebook’s not missing out on much upside, Kara Swisher says.
- Huffington Post had a staggering 40M unique visitors last month. “Eyeballs are eyeballs,” Peter Kafka writes. “Next up: Turning them into dollars.”
- Despite Google’s threats to pull out of China, China Unicom (CHU) says it still plans on selling handsets that run GOOG’s Android operating system.
- House approves $15 billion jobs plan.
- Sony’s looking to seriously get back in the game. It’s developing a new collection of portable gadgets that connect to its coming online media service and are designed to compete against Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
