According to officials and experts, the city's financial crisis is almost over and the job market is on the rise, but who do we thank for the less-devastating-than-expected downturn? Address cards and flowers to the federal government, which provided huge bailouts to Wall Street institutions like Citigroup, JPMogran Chase and Goldman Sachs, economists say. “If you pick almost any economic statistic—income, house prices, construction activity—it would tell the same story: New York has gotten hit, but it hasn’t gotten creamed," Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, tells the Times. more ›

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to unveil the Obama administration's take on the bank bailout plan at 11 a.m. this morning. The NY Times reports that he "largely prevailed in opposing tougher conditions on financial institutions that were sought by presidential aides" (like David Axelrod) and "successfully fought against more severe limits on executive pay for companies receiving government aid. He resisted those who wanted to dictate how banks would spend their rescue money. And he prevailed over top administration aides who wanted to replace bank executives and wipe out shareholders at institutions receiving aid." And, still, stock futures fell! Politico has some of Geithner's prepared remarks: "Instead of catalyzing recovery, the financial system is working against recovery, and that’s the dangerous dynamic we need to change." more ›

The White House signaled it might use TARP money (the earlier $700 billion bailout) to help out the Big Three. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms. However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary — including use of the TARP program — to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers.” The Treasury Department also signaled it could help prop up the automakers, and that helped the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 stay in positive territory. Also interesting: CNBC has a chart showing not just the one-day and one-week changes for stock market but the year-to-date change, too: The Dow is off by 35% for the year. more ›