Meant to pose this question earlier...

Barclays today said it was getting close to $12 billion in new capital from the Middle East, namely sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. This came after it rejected taking part in the bailout plan the UK offered. Folks have crowed that Barclays proves you don't need government bailouts. You can just raise cash on your own.

But, is it really private capital? These are sovereign wealth funds, so it's government money in a way -- just not your own government's. So, is it better to take money from your own government or someone else's?

If you received a mortgage through Chase, EMC or WaMu, there really isn't much excuse right now to not have your morgage reworked. JPM says today it is reviewing all mortgages going into the foreclosure process and suspending all foreclosures temporarily. That, added to a previous program, means that JPM expects to modify $110 billion in mortgages, which include the paper it received when it bought Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.

There's an added feature: Chase is reaching out to homeowners instead of waiting for them to come to the company.

Two things to think about here. One, banks hate to foreclose nowadays because they don't want to sit around holding property they can't sell. The real estate market is tough on them, too.

Second, Chase is making a politically savvy move here, hoping to head off criticism that it received federal funds but has nothing to help the homeowner. In fact, it throws in a little flight of sycophancy at the end of its release today:

"Chase acknowledges and appreciates the leadership of the U.S. Senate Banking and U.S. House Financial Services committees, the FDIC, a number of state attorneys general and community groups on this important issue, and the critical role they are playing in keeping families in their homes."

Anyone else notice Chase forgot Paulson and Bush?

When companies talked about a freezing in the credit market, they mentioned the shrinking of the commercial paper market as Exhibit A. Well, now there are signs that's thawing. Commercial paper outstanding grew last week by $100 billion -- its first increase in seven weeks, according to Tony Crescenzi at Miller Tabak.

So stayed tuned at 4:30pm when the Fed releases its weekly statistics, which include the first indication of how much of this new paper was bought by the Federal Reserve. If it is essentially responsible for all the rise, it's a step in the right direction, but says we're a long way from normalcy. (After all, the government should not be the primary buyer of corporate debt.) An unlikely scenario would be that the good ol' regular buyers were coming in, which would be an extraordinarily positive sign for the markets, but don't hold your breath.

At minimum, the Fed's report gives us a baseline. It would be good if its first report is also the high-water mark.

ExxonMobil exceeded expectations in the latest quarter, reporting the largest quarterly profit in the history of mankind with $14.83 billion on revenue of $137.74 billion. Not too shabby.

And taxpayers have benefitted. Yes, the company earned a record amount, but it paid out a record amount in taxes. The company paid a 43.3% tax rate. It paid $11.33 billion in income taxes, $9.33 billion in sales taxes and $11.85 billion in other taxes. That means it paid total taxes of $32.51 billion in the current quarter.

While other companies have been asking for handouts, ExxonMobil has been keeping the government funded.

Two things to think about when ExxonMobil reports today. First, wouldn't it be nice to see the largest company by market cap actually meet or exceed estimates for once? For all the criticism that its profits are TOO big, it seems that Exxon always falls shorts of what Wall Street thinks it potentially could earn. Not sure if that's a corporate strategy on its part, since there's no political upside in squeezing more profit out of its results, but Exxon is always a study in a company that has a lot of potential to improve its margins. We'll see if that's the case here.

Also, look at its effective tax rate. Most media and politicians will focus on the huge quarterly profits XOM reports, but few will mention that $9-$10 billion in taxes it puts into the government's coffers every quarter. That's important revenue for the government, and a rare instance where a company is sending cash to Washington instead of waiting for the government to write it a check.