In what I feared might become a regular feature here, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) arranged for the takeover of the 11th failed bank of 2008 on Friday. As I posted, the FDIC likes to close banks on Friday after hours so they can reopen as branches of the acquiring bank on the following Monday morning. According to the Associated Press, the bank in question is Nevada's Silver State Bank.

Nevada State Bank of Las Vegas will take over the insured deposits of Silver State -- which had $2 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in deposits at the end of June. AP reports that "[Silver State's] branches will reopen Monday as offices of Nevada State Bank in Nevada and National Bank of Arizona in Arizona."

John McCain's son, Andrew, who is also CFO of his mom's beer distributorship, "sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, starting in February but resigned in July citing 'personal reasons.' Andrew McCain also was a member of the bank's audit committee, responsible for oversight of the company's accounting," according to AP.

Fresh from several disappointing early voting contests, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani announced a plan to cut corporate business taxes from 35% to 25% as a way of stimulating the economy. It is difficult to know whether this is a serious policy issue for Giuliani or merely an attempt to get some attention to help his presidential campaign. But current Republican front runner Senator John McCain has also jumped on board Giuliani's proposal, so perhaps the issue will gain brief traction as the nomination circus continues.

Corporate tax cuts are not an automatic economic booster. In theory, reducing corporate tax rates leads to more productive corporate activity, which leads to higher profits. This in turn should lead to higher profits resulting, down the road, in higher tax revenues. Lower taxes on the front end in order to get back higher tax revenues in the longer term. Except that often, the longer term necessitates its own tax manipulations.

Reducing corporate taxes may seem like a good idea to a candidate looking for industry support. But at a time when some American companies are notching record profits and American consumers are being slammed with rising energy and fuel prices, tax breaks for corporations that are outsourcing or shedding jobs right and left will not earn a candidate many votes. Ultimately, it's voters who pull the lever.

Much as I would like to ignore them, there is no escaping the Iowa caucuses. Every pundit within 1,000 miles of Des Moines is weighing in on their meaning, or lack thereof. But there is one message coming loud and clear from the campaign from average voters that will continue to be heard, regardless who wins the hearts and minds of Dubuque: We're scared.

Consider that consumer confidence ended the year on a negative note. Oil prices are at or about to pass $100. The real estate market continues to scrape along the bottom. People are unhappy about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are unhappy with president. They are unhappy with the Democratic-led Congress. All of this crankiness is a great boon for the Democrats and a potential problem for Wall Street.

John Edwards, perhaps the most anti-corporate candidate, is in a statistical tie with fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Anti-tax zealot Ron Paul continues to break fund-raising records even though he stands no chance of winning the Republican nomination. Republican Mitt Romney, who made his fortune in private equity and would presumably be Wall Street's friend, continues to struggle against economic populist Mike Huckabee. Rudy Giuliani, another potential Wall Street friend, is avoiding Iowa and New Hampshire because he's probably going to get beaten badly there.

As the election heats up, so will the anti-corporate rhetoric. Remember that many voters don't know the difference between a stock and a bond, and think 401 is a type of Special K. Fear, uncertainty and doubt will play a large role in determining the next president, and that's why the markets are going to remain volatile for quite some time, regardless of how many times the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates.

Remember in 2004 when Sean Combs Puff Daddy P-Diddy Diddy helped champion the "Vote or Die" campaign? Yeah, me neither. But for decades, attempts to get the younger generation to the polls have been critical parts of our major elections. I still remember watching Bill Clinton on MTV in the summer of 1992, lamenting the fact that I was only 18 and unable to vote.

A new President will be elected in about 50 weeks, and Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC Networks is planning on using new media to help educate the social-networking crowd about candidates and news along the campaign trail. The network has inked a deal with Facebook -- in which Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) owns a small stake -- to provide news reports and video for the nearly 60 million members of the website. Facebook members will also be able to participate in polls and debates.

ABC and Facebook have announced plans to jointly sponsor Democratic and Republican Presidential debates in New Hampshire on January 5, three days ahead of the critical primary election in the Granite State. Dan Rose, VP of business development for Facebook, told The New York Times that "Through this partnership, we want to extend the dialogue both before and after the debate."

The agreement was not of a financial nature. ABC News will have exposure on an increasingly popular site; Facebook gets free, fresh content for its political section.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

It's been three weeks since our Money Face-Off feature ran here at BloggingStocks and on AOL, offering you the opportunity to share who you though had the financial edge in a series of twenty head-to-head match-ups. So I thought I'd take another look and see how things have worked out.

It's hard to pick just one big winner. In terms of the largest lead over a rival, Ivanka Trump easily beats Paris Hilton with 89% of the vote. Others holding big leads over their opponents include Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, and Rupert Murdoch.

In terms of receiving the most votes, the clear leader is the Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart match-up, with just short of 150,000 votes. Other big vote getters were Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, Rudy Giuliani vs. Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs. In terms of the liveliest discussions in the comments, the winners are Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart, Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, and Bono vs. Angelina Jolie. Also check out the comments for the J.K. Rowling vs. J.R.R Tolkien, Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, and Ivanka Trump vs. Paris Hilton posts.

As for the face-off posts here that got the most attention, the clear winner is Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, with more than 13,000 hits. Lindsay Lohan vs. Britney Spears and Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart also attracted lots of readers.

Results for all the face-offs follow below, but keep in mind that the voting is still open. It's not too late to add your vote or let us know what you think.

Two things you need to know about Googlefight.com, a website my husband discovered a few days ago. First, it is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), although I'm sure free publicity is always appreciated. Secondly, it can quickly become the cause of profound procrastination. The innovative but simple site simply compares two inputs (provided by the user) and ranks them in terms of their respective number of results gleaned from Google's search engine. Each "fight" takes mere seconds, and the time passes quickly as animated stick figures slug it out.

Of course, I had to start with my own name (I probably think this blog is about me). I pit myself against a co-worker who also has a unique name (Mark Fightmaster). Aha! Google FIght found 634,000 results for "Beth Gaston Moon"; 57,200 for Mark (I do have about 6 years of seniority over him at our company, so that was hardly fair). But when compared against Pamela Anderson, I lose, 634,000 to 7.73 million (I have a feeling they round their numbers).

Some other matches I conducted before begrudgingly heading back to work:

• Hillary Clinton (9.1 million) defeats Barack Obama (2.62 million)
• Fred Thompson (10.6 million) defeats Rudy Giuliani (2.05 million) - to be fair, this may be pulling for more than one "Fred Thompson."
• Ben Bernanke (2.62 million) defeats Alan Greenspan (1.96 million)!
• Steve Jobs (88.5 million) defeats Bill Gates (44.6 million)
• Howard Stern (2.09 million) defeats Don Imus (1.98 million)
• 50 Cent (68 million) defeats Kanye West (6.72 million), despite what the numbers say
• O.J. Simpson (15 million) narrowly defeats "criminal justice system" (14.4 million)
• Mets (26 million) defeats Yankees (22.9 million)!
  

The site is hardly scientific, but it's interesting and certainly fun. According to Google Fight, some of its classic battle royales include God v. Satan, Luke Skywalker v. Darth Vadar, and Mohammad Ali v. Mike Tyson. Victors are God by a landslide, Vadar (hooray!), and Ali (again, by a hefty margin). Let the madness begin here.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

It's been a week since our Money Face-Off posts ran here on BloggingStocks and less than a week since the Money Face-Offs were featured on the AOL welcome page, and the response has been terrific. Many of the face-off polls have more than 50,000 votes thus far, and some of the match-ups are very close.

The closest of all is the face-off of CNBC anchors Erin Burnett and Maria Bartiromo: 50/50 with more than 61,000 votes so far. And the post has garnered 39 comments so far. The commenters have strong opinions, whether defending Bartiromo or Burnett, wishing other anchors had been included, complaining about the photos, or even questioning the Money Face-Off feature itself. Be sure to check it out.

The face-off between the former and current New York City mayors, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, garnered more than 67,000 votes. While Bloomberg has his defenders, presidential candidate Giuliani currently has a small lead in this match-up, with a little over half the votes. Can he hold on to that lead, though?

The match-up of supermodels turned businesswomen, Tyra Banks vs. Heidi Klum, also has more than 50,000 votes so far. In this case, it's Klum in the lead with about 55 percent of the vote. Only one reader, a Tyra Banks fan, has commented so far. Feel free to add your thoughts about which former supermodel you think is more successful.

This post is part of our Money Face-Offs feature. Let us know who you think comes out ahead in this head-to-head match-up, and check out our other Money Face-Off posts.

From the bodegas of Brooklyn to the penthouses of Central Park, most New Yorkers would probably tell you that they like the present mayor Mike Bloomberg a whole lot better than the previous occupant of Gracie Mansion, Rudy Giuliani.

Neither Bloomberg nor Giuliani suffers from low self-esteem. I worked for Bloomberg LP for seven years and had some brief encounters with Bloomberg over the years. One time, I called him "Mr. Bloomberg" when I shook his hand at the company's Christmas party. He insisted that I call him "Mike." I continued to call him Mr. Bloomberg. Warm and cuddly, he is not, and working for Mike's company wasn't always easy.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. You can vote for Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal to lose all his money, or see the other nominees in this category.

Called by Time magazine the "Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia," Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is a member of the Saudi royal family, as well as a Lebanese citizen through his mother. Though he is the nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, he is not in line to rule Saudi Arabia and has largely stayed out of politics. He is an entrepreneur and international investor with a net worth estimated in 2006 at $20 billion, and he is ranked as the eighth richest person in the world by Forbes.

He has made large investments, through his Kingdom Holding Company, in Citicorp (NYSE:C), AOL (NYSE:TWX), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Motorola (NYSE:MOT), Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and other technology and media companies. His real estate holdings have included stakes in the Four Seasons hotel chain, the Plaza Hotel in New York, the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel in Monaco, and Euro Disney. In 2005 he purchased the Savoy Hotel in London for £250 million.

In 2001 Prince Al-Waleed's donation of $10 million dollars to New York City in the wake of the September 11 World Trade Center attack was rebuffed by Mayor Giuliani. In 2005 he donated $20 million to the Louvre for the construction of a wing to house the museum's vast collection of Islamic art, and another $20 million to Harvard and Georgetown Universities for Islamic studies programs. He has also donated to centers for American studies at universities in the Middle East, such as the American University in Cairo. He is believed to donate more than $100 million annually to charities throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.