“Who would want Vikram S. Pandit’s job?” asks an article in today’s New York Times. Since he took over as CEO of Citigroup in 2007, and especially since the end of 2008, Pandit has watched the bank’s fortunes plunge, even as the level of government control increases. So what was it about the CEO job that at one time seemed so appealing?

The U.S. deficit would almost quadruple in President Obama’s proposed budget. Wharton’s Jeremy J. Siegel suggests the spending plan could do without a $634 billion health care fund, which he would delay until after the nation emerges from recession.

A new report ranks the U.S. sixth among 40 countries and regions based on 16 measures of innovation and competitiveness. The U.S. finished last in progress made over the last decade.

In Philadelphia, another example of the newspaper industry’s struggles — and a strategy that is likely to be repeated.

A Wharton real estate professor embraces two of the three major provisions of the Obama foreclosure relief plan. Even the third one may be more successful than its critics contend, she says.

The trustee overseeing the disposition of Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme told investors today there was no indication the disgraced money manager bought securities for his clients, according to the Associated Press. The Madoff case has diminished much of the trust that helps financial markets operate, two Wharton professors said in a recent podcast.

The stimulus package may save 3.5 million jobs, but with the U.S. losing 20,000 jobs a day, it falls short of what is needed to jumpstart the economy, said Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist. He spoke at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday.

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt shows how it’s done by eliminating a $12 million cash payment — for himself.