Postcards

Behind the shakeup at BofA

by Patricia Sellers

The news that another Fortune Most Powerful Woman -- Bank of America (BAC) chief risk officer Amy Brinkley -- has fallen was inevitable.

The surprise is that she lasted as long as she did.

The pressure is that intense inside CEO Ken Lewis' financial-services empire -- now the largest U.S. bank by revenues and No. 11 on the Fortune 500, thanks to a run of aggressive acquisitions. The topper, Merrill MORE

Power Point: Look out for Main Street

"Any effort to restore confidence in our economy must start not on Wall Street but in Main Street, and that's what the credit card situation is all about."

-- Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Majority Leader, speaking before a Senate vote on Tuesday that put new restrictions on the credit card industry. The bill is supposed to make card terms more explicit and be fairer to customers, providing safeguards MORE

Why P&G's president quit

by Patricia Sellers

Procter & Gamble (PG) lost its president today: Susan Arnold, a 29-year veteran who drove the company's high-margin beauty business to $20 billion in sales and went on to oversee all of P&G's brands, stepped down one day after her 55th birthday.

"My dad retired at 62," Arnold said, phoning this afternoon on her way to a Walt Disney (DIS) board meeting. "Then he got really sick. You know MORE

This Week: The best and the worst behavior

This was a week of extreme behavior. From embarrassment to enlightenment. We learned that John Thain, ousted by Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis, redecorated his Merrill Lynch office at a cost of more than $1.2 million. People who worked with Thain pre-Merrill tell me that he was not a really extravagant guy. But he was, at times, clueless.

Three people who worked with Thain at the New York Stock MORE

Power Point: Extraordinary measures for extraordinary times

"These are extraordinary times. The credit markets literally hit a wall, and nobody lending to consumers or who is in the capital markets is immune."

-- Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis in a conference call with investors Friday morning, following the government announcement that BofA would receive another $20 billion from its Troubled Asset Relief Program.

BofA also gets guarantees on $118 billion of assets backed by soured real-estate loans, MORE

Wrath for Rubin, and Mack's shot at redemption

Such wrath! Readers' comments on Friday's post about Bob Rubin were angrier than I ever expected. A half-dozen commenters suggested that the onetime U.S. Treasury Secretary, whose reputation collapsed along with the fortunes of Citigroup (C), should go to jail for bungling the job that he's now leaving. On the one hand, I'm tempted to say: Calm down! There's no evidence - not a whiff - that Rubin did anything MORE

This week: Power shifts at Merrill, Microsoft and beyond

This year started off with a bang - at least in terms of coming and goings of powerful people. Which Postcards is largely about.

This week, I told you about Liz Dolan, once Nike's (NKE) global marketing boss, joining Oprah Winfrey to be CMO of her new venture, the OWN cable network. And yesterday, my colleague Jessica Shambora wrote about Ellen Kullman, No. 15 on the Fortune Most Powerful Women list, MORE

BlackRock's bright forecast for stocks

I stopped by BlackRock's (BLK) midtown Manhattan offices on my way to jury duty this morning. Bob Doll, the giant money management firm's vice chairman and chief investment officer for global equities, was giving his annual forecast. "I've been doing this for about 15 years," he told me before he stepped up to the podium.

"This must be your most dire forecast, Bob?" I asked.

"No," he said. "The headlines are going MORE

Can Citi shrink its way to transformation?

That whopping reduction that Citigroup (C) announced Monday -- 50,000 jobs, representing 20% of its work force -- turns out to be the biggest cut by a corporation in 15 years. So say the job-trackers at Challenger Gray & Christmas. The largest reduction before Citi's: IBM (IBM), which set out to eliminate 60,000 jobs in 1993.

Vikram Pandit's shrinking of Citi -- part of "one of the greatest transformations in history," MORE

Marketers strive for value

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain compares this economic crisis to the one that triggered the Great Depression: Look back to the 1929 period "to see the kind of slowdown we're experiencing now," said Thain -- who sold his firm to Bank of America (BAC) -- at a conference yesterday. Thain's outlook is scary--and marketers are getting his message. Have you noticed how some of the big-brand companies are adjusting to MORE