Meet the bankers and brokers responsible for the financial crisis — and the officials who let them get away with it.

• The Dirty Dozen

At today’s online town hall Obama, to his credit, took time to answer a question about legalizing marijuana:

There was one question that voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation. And I don’t know what this says about the online audience, but … this was a popular question. We want to make sure it’s answered. The answer is no, I don’t think that’s a good strategy to grow our economy. All right.

UPDATE: Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a “10,000-member organization representing cops, judges, prosecutors and others who fought on the front lines of the ‘war on drugs’ and who know it is not working” responds to Obama in an email to NA Daily:

“Despite the president’s flippant comments today, the grievous harms of marijuana prohibition are no laughing matter. Certainly, the 800,000 people arrested last year on marijuana charges find nothing funny about it, nor do the millions of Americans struggling in this sluggish economy. It would be an enormous economic stimulus if we stopped wasting so much money arresting and locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses and instead brought in new tax revenue from legal sales, just as we did when we ended alcohol prohibition 75 years ago during the Great Depression.”

*Hat tip to Dave Gilson for the improved headline.

A few signs of hope:

Durable goods orders: up 3.4%
Nondefense capital goods: up 6.6%
New home sales: up 4.7%
Existing home sales: up 5.5%
Retail sales: down 0.1%
California bond sale*: $6.5 billion ($2.5 billion greater than expected.)

The all too prescient NYU econ prof known as Dr. Doom gives the Obama toxic asset plan a reserved stamp of approval:

Mr. Roubini believes that the Treasury’s plan does not preclude nationalization at all. Rather, he said, it will help to clear the way to full government takeover of some troubled institutions.

“I see the option of nationalization” and the one presented by the Obama administration “as being complementary,” Mr. Roubini said. He believes that the stress tests the government plans on conducting on the banks will reveal which are solvent and which are insolvent.

In his view, those banks that are deemed insolvent will not participate in the toxic-asset plan and will be taken over by the government. Banks deemed solvent will be the ones that get to participate.

Nationalization “is fully on the table for banks that are insolvent,” Mr. Roubini said.

The global economic crisis isn’t about money — it’s about power. Matt Taibbi on how Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution.

• The Big Takeover