The White House has notified Congressional Democrats that it may ask for the remaining $350 billion of TARP funds before leaving office, but said it would not seek to allocate the money. Some speculate that Obama may endorse that move to help make the money more readily available to his administration. Barney Frank has already said release of the funds will be contingent on a large portion going to help struggling homeowners with their mortgages.

Meanwhile, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association wants a return to "TARP Classic," i.e. spending the remaining $350 billion on the original plan -- buying distressed assets from banks and financial institutions. The group’s CEO, Tim Ryan, told Fortune magazine:  "We have no problem with capital injections, but if you do capital injections without taking care of the bad assets, it just causes the problem to go into hibernation." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a paper issued last week that a study of financial crises over the past three decades suggests that isolating bad assets is a key to a successful response to a major market meltdown.

The Wall Street Journal says expect a wave of bankruptcy filings among hard-hit retailers that could alter the landscape at malls and on main streets across the country. Tight credit will also make it more difficult for retailers to reorganize under bankruptcy-court protection, as they were able to do in the past, meaning there are likely to be more liquidations.

The incoming Obama administration is moving quickly to ensure a reinstatement of the estate tax as soon as it expires at the end of 2010. Obama wants to permanently lock in the exemption levels and tax rates effective this year – a $3.5 million exemption for individuals and $7 million for couples at a tax rate of 45%.

and in the knock-on-wood department:

For the first time since jet airliners took to the sky, U.S. carriers have gone two years without a single passenger fatality, made all the more remarkable by the fact that they ferried more than 1 billion people during that 24-month period.