Suzanne Nora Johnson, former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and now a director of several non-profit and for-profit boards (including AIG), offers her perspective on restoring the “financial quality, integrity and soundness of our system.”

Government bailouts, so far limited to banks, stumbling automakers and other big-time players in the economy, have finally been made available to small businesses, which have been starved for credit since the subprime meltdown. Supporting a sector that has generated some 70% of jobs seems overdue.

The leak in the dike of Swiss bank secrecy that opened up recently has turned into a flood — and has spread to other tax havens, too.

The Chinese premier’s public expression of concern puts pressure on the U.S., which depends on China’s purchases of American debt to help finance the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

They’re not quite an endangered species, but the world’s population of billionaires fell to fewer than 800 over the last year, according to Forbes magazine’s annual list.

Put off evictions? Modify mortgages for distressed homeowners? Let shareholders vote on executive pay packages? Those strings and others that come with accepting money from the government’s bank rescue program have some bankers thinking twice about accepting the cash.

Fed Chairman Bernanke suggested a broad and “holistic” approach to re-regulating the financial system. Wharton faculty have urged the same.

In the proposal to merge Merck and Schering Plough, “there’s a lot that makes sense,” according to Wharton professor Jehoshua Eliashberg.