With regulators having seized 123 banks so far this year, one might think the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would be looking everywhere to find potential buyers for failed financial institutions' deposits and assets. But there's one place to which they're apparently not quite ready to turn: China.

When San Francisco-based United Commercial Bank failed on Nov. 9, the Fed was weighing an application by Chinese bank Minsheng to step in and take it over. But while it considered whether Chinese regulators were prepared to oversee a bank with operations on both sides of the Pacific, time ran out and UCB was shut down.

It's rarely much fun to watch government officials testify before Congress. But Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) managed to add a charge to a hearing held Thursday morning by the Joint Economic Committee when he told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that bailouts and rising unemployment had eroded lawmakers' and taxpayers' confidence in him. He then asked him to resign.

"Mr. Secretary, you are the point person on the economy, and the buck, in effect, stops with you," Brady said. "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?"

Beginning next summer, banks will have to stop charging overdraft fees on debit- and ATM-card transactions without the permission of the cardholder, according to a new rule announced Thursday by the Federal Reserve.

Banks have been taking heat over the fees for months, and Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), among others, announced in October that they would allow their customers to opt out of overdraft protection, ending practices that consumer advocates disdain.

Just how much taxpayers will recoup of the $700 billion set aside last fall to bolster companies hard hit by the credit crisis has been a matter of debate for more than a year. And because American International Group (AIG), the deeply troubled insurer that's 80%-owned by the U.S. government, has received such a big bailout, it has frequently been in the center of that debate.

Surprisingly, however, Moody's Investors Service (MCO) now says AIG may be able to pay back much more of that government aid than first thought. In fact, the credit-rating firm said in a report Tuesday that AIG will probably be able to repay all of the more than $180 billion it has received from taxpayers as well as buy back the government's stake in the company.

A deep recession isn't a great time to be in the business of lending to entrepreneurs. First CIT Group had to seek bankruptcy protection last month when it failed to strike a deal with bondholders to rework its debt. And now Advanta (ADVNB), a credit-card company specializing in lending to small-business owners, will follow, it announced today.

The news comes five months after Advanta cut off borrowing by its cardholders, citing a surge in delinquencies. It's still hoping to collect $2.7 billion in balances from 360,000 customers.

Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men and CEO of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), once proclaimed that "the banking business is no favorite of ours." The comment came in one of his famous missives to Berkshire's shareholders by way of explaining that financial companies were too risky and opaque for the über-investor's tastes.

But that was in 1990. Today, well-timed investments in banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are looking like smart moves for Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, according to figures contained in the company's quarterly earnings statement released Friday. So are bets on a number of other blue-chip stocks like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Coca-Cola (KO). The company's third-quarter net income nearly tripled to $3.24 billion, or $2,087 per Class A equivalent share, compared with $1.06 billion, or $682 per Class A equivalent share, in the year-ago quarter.

The threat of family feuds and a worldwide slump in hotel reservations couldn't dampen Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H) on its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The high-end hotel chain rose more than 12 percent on Thursday after raising $950 million in its initial public offering the prior evening.

What's driving the strong performance? It certainly doesn't hurt that the S&P 500 enjoyed its fourth straight day of gains, rising about 1.8 percent. But investors pushed Hyatt's shares from $25, where they debuted, all the way up to $28 on the strength of its well-known brand and healthy cash flow, analysts say.

Veteran Wall Street analyst Richard Bove caused quite a stir among bankers last summer with a research note that called out 24 mostly small and midsize financial institutions. Bove said they were endangered by rising levels of delinquent mortgages and other toxic assets.

The decision to publish that research has cost Bove plenty. One of the banks he identified as troubled sued him last July. To protect his firm, he quit and joined another company, and he has since been shouldering a monthly legal bill of some $50,000, he says. But he's not backing down. Indeed, in a new report sent to clients Wednesday, he sought to show that most of the banks he criticized more than a year ago haven't fared well since.

There's an interesting merger percolating in the coffee world. Peet's Coffee & Tea (PEET), the chain said to have been the inspiration for Starbucks (SBUX), said Monday it had reached a $213 million deal to buy Diedrich Coffee (DDRX), a big seller of java in single-serving cups for home brewing.

So what's the big deal? After all, small companies buy each other for a few hundred million dollars all the time. But Diedrich is probably the best-performing stock in the United States this year. In fact, it was up a mind-boggling 5,555.56 percent this year before the takeover by Peet's was announced. As recently as late March, it was trading for 42 cents; Peet's agreed to pay $26 a share to take it over.

Last Friday, regulators seized nine banks, the most on a single day since the financial crisis began more than two years ago. Sure, it was a sign of just how sick many financial institutions have become, but it wasn't all bad news. That's especially true for U.S. Bancorp (USB), the Minnesota-based regional bank picked by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to take over all nine of the failed banks' branches and deposits.

U.S. Bancorp has emerged as the past year's biggest buyer of failed banks. And Friday's haul was its largest yet. It took over California, Texas, Illinois and Arizona-based subsidiaries of FBOP Corp., a privately owned bank holding company with headquarters outside Chicago. The deals bring U.S. Bancorp some $18 billion in assets and 150 branches -- and raise an interesting question: Just how big can it grow by feeding on failed banks' remains?