Peter cohan

Given the number of people who trust the lives of their families to vehicles every day, you'd think cars would be subject to some kind of consumer protection agency to keep faulty vehicles off the roads until they had been thoroughly tested. That's not the case, but it should be.

Did Goldman Sachs induce the collapse of AIG? The SEC is now examining the possibility that Goldman used its leverage in its relationship with the giant insurer to squeeze extra cash out of AIG on its credit default swaps -- and then push it over the edge.

Business lender CIT Group, whose bankruptcy cost the taxpayers $2.3 billion in TARP money, has picked as its new CEO the man who got the boot from Merrill Lynch after approving huge bonuses for executives as his company lost billions. Can they find redemption together?

How about waiting to pay any bonuses to AIG employees only after U.S. taxpayers have gotten all their money back? Then bonuses should come out of AIG profits. Until that happens, no bonuses.

The giant U.S. planemaker finds itself caught in the middle of an escalating series of spats between Washington and Beijing. At stake are not just Boeing's long-term strategy but America's ability to finance is deepening debt.

"The Great Recession is over," says economist Mark Zandi. But major job losses don't appear to have ended yet, despite two quarters of GDP growth, and some analysts are wondering if the recession lives on.

The Times of London is reporting based on unsourced rumors that rival bankers claim Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein will pull in a cool $100 million bonus for 2009.

Toyota has announced a fix for its rogue accelerator pedals, which will come as a relief to drivers of the automaker's vehicles. While it's too early to give Toyota a final grade on its handling of the problem, I'd give the company a C for how it has dealt with it so far.

With millions of Toyotas being recalled in the U.S., and more recalls announced in Europe and China, one thing is becoming clear: When it set out to win the right to call itself the globe's biggest vehicle maker, Toyota decided to place sales growth ahead of quality.

President Obama tried to capture the public's anger toward Wall Street while defending his decision to bail it out. He argued that while his rescue of the banks wasn't popular, it was necessary. As a palliative, he suggested that $30 billion of the repaid TARP money be given to community banks to lend to small businesses. And he pushed for a bill that reduces the risk in the financial system to prevent a recurrence of the financial crisis.