In a word: yes.

Despite all the talk about regulating these speculative investment vehicles, "Obama's financial overhaul plan included no big surprises or threats to the lucrative, secretive industry," writes The Wall Street Journal.

The name of the game is lobbying, which is easily funded by the $1.3 trillion dollar industry. Even after numerous Ponzi schemes and frauds have recently been exposed, the U.S. government has failed at regulating hedge funds, the most speculative area in finance, in part due to the industry's lobbying efforts.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the endless worries will prove bogus, and jobs creation could spur a real lift.

Alt-A. Endless bank foreclosures. Commercial real estate. These are the big three worries that will not be killed by data, rigor or common sense, no matter what happens.

Doesn't it occur to anyone that there already should have been a big spike in commercial real estate losses by now? That the decline in the economy has lasted long enough that it should have manifested itself? Doesn't anyone think that there should have been a big commercial real estate bad-debt bump at a Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) or a JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) or a Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take)?

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the jobless number shows the folly of thinking we can get through on what we have.

Tough data point, the employment number. Lagging. But when you see it, the number doesn't feel like it's lagging. In fact, it is thesis-busting, as in, "We aren't getting better, let's stop fooling ourselves." It just feels like, "Come on, we know the truth, we need to have a second stimulus plan."

That will be the battleground for the second half of this year: further budget-busting vs. putting more people to work, because we sure aren't doing a great job of putting them to work.

The motel chain Red Roof Inn hit the roof this week with a thud, defaulting on over $350 million of mortgage payments. The chain, purchased by Citigroup Inc.'s (NYSE:C) Global Special Situations Unit and Westmont Hospitality Group from Accor SA two years ago for $1.3 billion, has suffered a drop in overnights of over 10% since the acquisition.

Red Roof Inn was started in 1972 by Jim Trueman. (Trueman is better remembered as the car racing fan, who provided the opportunity for star driver, Bobby Rahal, to start his career.) The company was based in Columbus, OH until its sale to Accor, and returned there after its most recent sale. The chain has grown to 345 locations, in 36 states. 133 of these Inns are owned by franchisees. 131 of the company-owned Inns were put up as collateral for the four mortgages the chain received. Total debt, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), approaches $1.2 billion.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer wants to out the bankers behind the Red Roof deal and other deals like it.

What didn't they take private? What didn't they lever up? When I read about Extended Stay's bankruptcy and Red Roof's default Tuesday night I started thinking, did anyone besides me ever stay at places like this? Did anyone ever realize the marginality of these places? Did they simply look at some numbers on some pieces of paper and say, "Yep, that's money in the bank"?

And sure enough, Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) was the lender to Red Roof, a deal two years old that has already gone sour. Maybe this was one of those have-to-keep-dancing-until-the-music-stops deals by Chuck Prince, the foremost clown of all of the bankers of the era.

Has your broker repeatedly sold you on the "safe" investment vehicle, the mutual fund? Investing in a wide variety of prominent companies, with solid, long-term track records, mutual funds have been an easy-to-understand and popular investment choice for decades.

Mutual funds are hugely diversified, holding large stakes in recognizable names such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), General Electric (NYSE: GE), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM).

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says these markets are easy to manipulate, a lesson learned over the last two years.

Did the bears really have nothing up their sleeves with the last-minute pushdown at the end of Thursday's session? No big downgrades? No bank seizures? No stories about how Citigroup's (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) getting close to failure again?

They didn't have the bond market story, for certain. Bonds were a buy. Oil wasn't out of control, just up enough to drive stocks up again. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) never gave up the ghost -- and I know I wasn't going to let it give up the ghost on my TV show, "Mad Money."

A bit of good news to go with the bad. New unemployment claims are down in the past few months, with the moving average for monthly claims dropping to just over 600,000, about 37,000 below the all-time high reached in the early spring of 2009. That doesn't mean they aren't high, but at least we're not in a screaming nosedive.

For the first time in 10 months, the International Energy Association raised its oil demand forecast. That helped send oil prices higher, true, but it also is a clear sign that the global industrial production machine has bottomed and could reverse in the near term, if it has not already done so.

This morning, Citigroup (NYSE: C) began its $58-billion stock swap, a move that could leave the government with a 34% stake in the bank. The country's third-largest bank plans to swap common stock for (up to) $33 billion in preferred shares and convert as much as $25 billion of preferred shares held by the U.S. Treasury into common stock.

The bank believes that the swap could (emphasis on could here) make Citigroup one of the world's best-capitalized banks. The action could add up to $61 billion of tangible common equity and $64 billion of Tier-1 common equity. Citigroup had planned to take this action back in April.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the government will want to shed the people who presided over the huge losses.

Sometimes the best course is simply to ask what the government wants. In the case of Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) it is pretty obvious that the government wants anyone responsible for the previous travesty of corporate governance to get the heave-ho. That means anyone on the board during the Chuck Prince reign.

I think that's reasonable; the government is going to be the largest shareholder, so it makes sense for to want new board members who didn't screw up.

In running a very tight stock screen recently for value plays Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) showed up on a list of 14 stocks. Interestingly all the large railroad stocks did. This reminded me of several stories I have done on the subject, the most recent being Chasing Value: Watch BNI -- the heck with Citigroup.

To summarize, about six weeks ago a Citigroup (NYSE: C) analyst declared it was time to sell the stock when BNI was trading in the mid $60s -- I said investors should do the opposite, it was a great value. Friday the stock closed at $76.98. Even at this price it is a value and ever more so with oil prices steadly creeping up.

Downtrodden Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), which received its walking papers from Dow Jones on Monday, has informed five of its former executives that they'll no longer be receiving severance payouts. According to a report today in The Wall Street Journal [subscription required], recently departed executives Kevin Kessinger and Michael Klein will be among those affected by the decision.

Already, Citi has doled out approximately half of the $100 million it pledged to these former execs. The U.S. Treasury hasn't demanded that the severance payments be halted, but sources close to the bailed-out bank say that Citi's top brass "[want] to avoid even the possibility of a public backlash over the money."

Even though it would seem that Citi is finally getting a handle on the concept of money management -- or public relations, at the very least -- investors are hardly cheering. The stock has given up more than 3% today, extending its year-to-date drop of 45%. In fact, the shares are currently in position to finish the session below their 10-day and 20-day moving averages, which would mark the first breach of this double-barreled support since May 1.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says that it's the most conservative player in an industry filled with gunslingers.

The keepers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average must have felt insurance-less after the defrocking of AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take), so it's fitting that they added Travelers (NYSE: TRV) (Cramer's Take) to the list, even as I would have preferred Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) or Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) (Cramer's Take).

They needed a financial that wasn't a bank and there aren't many out there that still trade at anything but desperate levels or weren't saved by the government.

After weeks of speculation - Apple! Amazon! Nike! Toyota! -- all became clear today when General Motors Corporation's (NYSE: GM) exodus from the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) made room for... Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO). While perhaps not as sexy a name as, say, Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), it does add one more tech name to the venerable 30-stock average.

Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson released a statement noting that CSCO made the cut "because its communications and computer-networking products are vital to an economy and culture still adapting to the Information Age -- just as automobiles were essential to America in the 20th Century." So there's the connection!

Today was one of those magical days where no bad news could get in the way and all good news was viewed as the leader. Despite there now having already been 1 million foreclosures in 2009, the direction of personal income and spending was in the right direction while a revival was seen in manufacturing and construction. The DJIA was also challenging its 200-Day Moving Average, but that is after the S&P 500 Index crossed its 200-Day Moving Average. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,721.36 +221.03 (2.60%)
S&P 500 942.87 +23.73 (2.58%)
Nasdaq 1,828.68 +54.35 (3.06%)

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