Rick Wagoner is quitting as chief executive of General Motors, after the White House forced him out as a condition of the latest round of corporate bailout money. Chrysler, too, is set to get its share of loans from the government, but, thus far, Nardelli isn’t being asked to leave.

True, there are differences between Wagoner and Nardelli. Wagoner has led GM since 2000, while Nardelli took over Chrysler after its Cerberus-backed buyout in August 2007. And GM has been in much worse financial shape than Chrysler.

But Nardelli will be on a very short leash, and look for Congress to question his every move.

You see, he has a compensation problem.

When Nardelli resigned as CEO of Home Depot in 2007, he was essentially run out as a result of his pay. Not only that, he was criticized by shareholder activists for ignoring investor concerns about his pay. Indeed, at a May 2006 annual meeting, he refused to answer questions from shareholders and gaveled the meeting to a quick close, ignoring shareholders who wanted to exercise their rights by asking questions and making comments to the board. Nardelli and Home Depot would later apologize for the spectacle.

When Nardelli quit Home Depot in 2007, he drew more ire by walking away with a $210 million golden parachute – even though his tenure did little to boost Home Depot’s stock price.

In fact, House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., was critical Nardelli back then, calling the severance package “out of control.”

Frank’s words back then echo now in the controversy over bonuses paid to AIG executives and any compensation going to CEOs of financial-services companies that have taken federal bailout dollars.

Perhaps Nardelli has learned from the experience. He was, after all, the first of the Big Three auto execs to agree to take just $1 in pay.

How Nardelli structures his future compensation will judge how hard a time the government gives him – and Chrysler – in the coming months. Already, the government has suggested that Chrysler isn't viable and its future lies with  Fiat as a partner, not as a standalone company. That doesn't speak well to Nardelli's turnaround skills.

Given the public outrage over outsized compensation and taxpayer fatigue with bailouts and stimulus, Nardelli shouldn’t expect the government to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Sage advice from a Wall Street market strategist?

Hardly.

That was direct from the mouth of President Barack Obama.

Traditionally, presidents don't comment on the markets. They know it's a path that usually leads to no good. Presidents are not stock pickers. And their words can move markets. Indeed, stocks recovered somewhat from a midday slump after Mr. Obama made the comment, in a media availability with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Yet, given the market selloff over the past several months, might it not be a good idea to cheerlead stocks? Don't extraordinary times call for throwing out the rulebook?

Here's why the answer is no. The President needs to stay out of the markets for the markets to operate efficiently. Even at a time when it seems the government is as inolved in stocks as it has ever been, it's still a bad idea for the head of the nation to guide people in how to save or invest their money. People respect the office, and follow the advice, and the president should not have the responsibility to guide private citizens' nest eggs. It is beneath the Office of the President.

Plus, he could well be wrong.

Look at it this way: There were plenty of folks who pull down paychecks who called the bottom in the fall. And in December. And in January. And now.

In fact, looking at P/E ratios to guide overall market valuation is more of an art than a science. Some see an oversold market now. Others still see more selling yet to come. And market history has shown us that we can go through long periods where stocks barely move at all.

One last point: For all his appeal, charm, charisma and success, President Obama doesn't do the stock market for a living. If he did, he would be as hesitant as everyone else to recommend someone increase their stock allocations.

After all, many of those who offered that advice over the past year are now out of jobs.

Now that's a problem worthy of the president's time and attention.

Leave it to Apple to snatch shareholder-rights defeat from the jaws of victory. Not too long ago, we were praising Jobs for coming clean and admitting, amid gobs of speculation, that Jobs was ill. He referred to his sickness as a "hormone imbalance" that caused him to lose weight. He also said that treatment was fairly simple and he expected to recover by late spring.

Unfortunately, Jobs said Wednesday that he needs to step aside as CEO of Apple to undergo treatment.

But, yet again, it was the way Apple disclosed the news that was problematic for those looking for honest, straight-forward answers from the company.

First, Apple disclosed the illness in a letter from Jobs himself, where he first lamented that the "curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction." Only after complaining about all this speculation -- which was A) fueled by Apple's stubborn resistance to address it in the first place, and B) true -- did he say that "during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought."

Jobs is taking medical leave until the end of June. Tim Cook will run the company in the interim.

But Apple did leave a big question unanswered -- one that plays into the potential volatility of the stock: Is this indeed still just a hormone imbalance, or is it something deeper, perhaps related to his pancreatic cancer? There is no mention of the nature of his illness, or what made it more complex than he originally thought just a week ago.

That will be the source of much speculation over the next few months. Apple would be well-served giving updates on what hopefully becomes a full recovery.

Treatment is simple, Jobs says, and he expects to recover by late Spring.

Most important for investors: he will remain Apple's CEO during that time.

Apple had been criticized, even here, for not disclosing the state of Jobs's health, amid legitimate questions over his fitness to lead the company. Apple had declined to address the issue, saying they would "let us know" if he were unable to serve as CEO.

That approach only fueled more speculation, and, in some cases, wild rumors -- which accelerated over the past few weeks. Jobs, after all, is a rare survivor of pancreatic cancer.

Now, Apple can put those rumors to rest. Jobs is indeed ill, but with something that is highly treatable. His illness is not expected to interfere with his role. Those are details vital to shareholders, despite Jobs still saying his health is "very personal." 

Good for Apple for finally addressing the issue.

There is a real question about transparency and corporate governance that needs to be addressed.

I hope Steve Jobs is well. Really. He is a legend in both technology and business, an innovator and someone who has created a great deal of value of shareholders. He is irreplaceable, and shareholders in Apple just have to get used to that.

But...

Apple has to get used to the idea that Steve Jobs' health is a legitimate issue for the company and should be addressed as such. When shareholders -- or, yes, even the media -- ask, it is not for some morbid, sordid reasons, or as an inappropriate invasion of privacy, but because there is real shareholder value at stake. So, it is not entirely the private matter Apple executives say it is.

The answer the company gave to FBN's Shibani Joshi Monday, and repeated Tuesday, isn't appropriate: "If Steve or the board decides that Steve is no longer capable of doing his job as CEO of Apple, I am sure they will let you know."

That tells investors nothing about his current ability to run the company, nor certainly his future ability to do so. And, if the worst is true and he isn't well enough to fulfill his duties as CEO to the full extent shareholders expect, Apple has a legal responsibility to tell the investing public. Shareholders-rights attorneys would salivate at the idea of Apple keeping material information from the public. If -- God forbid -- he died tomorrow of a disease he had been fighting for weeks or months, the SEC would have a real case to bring against Apple for withholding material information.

Apple can learn a good lesson from McDonald's. In 2004, Charlie Bell was named CEO in April after the sudden heart attack and death of Jim Cantalupo. A month into the job, Bell disclosed he had been diagnosed with coloreactal cancer. He had surgery, was released, but then disclosed he would need chemotherapy. By November, Bell decided the treatment would take away from his focus as CEO, so he resigned to concentrate on treatment. He died two months later.

Obviously, it was a rocky time to be a McDonald's shareholder, given the death of two CEOs within a year. But shareholders were at least kept informed. They knew the succession risk because the company, while respecting Bell's privacy by withholding details, at least made sure the investing public knew the course of both the disease and treatment. The company disclosed material details all along the way.

And that was for a company that was not so closely associated with its CEO, as Apple is now.

So the questions are legitimate. And the response from the company and the board needs to be legitimate, too.

In truth, it may not be an issue at all. Jobs may indeed be healthy, with his hand on the tiller. But, right now, shareholders can't know for sure...and that's Apple's fault, not the rumor mill's.

- Ford is still seeking a $9 billion bridge loan from the government, though it notes it “hopes” it doesn't need it

- Ford also has said the failure of one or more of its competitors would also possibly lead to its own bankruptcy, so preventing such failures helps them

- Any concessions from the UAW on wages would benefit Ford.

So, while Ford did not get cash in this latest round, they, too, were essentially bailed out by the White House and Treasury.

At issue are the workers of Republic Window and Doors, which shut its own windows and doors and went belly up after its bank, Bank of America, cut off its credit because, well, it was a bad credit risk. But the workers -- unionized ones, you should note -- refused to budge and were able to attract the media and politicians (including now-indicted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich) to their cause.

The villain, though, turned out not to be Republic, but rather than bank, so much so that Blago himself, a day before sporting handcuffs, said the state would no longer do business with B of A. (Perhaps B of A CEO Ken Lewis should have made a financial offer to the governor. He may have ended up with a Senate seat. But that story is for another time.)

Yesterday, Bank of America caved to the political pressure and decided to offer "limited" loans to Republic. The bank was in an impossible position. On the one hand, it faced criticism that it had received taxpayer money, the union workers who lost their jobs were taxpayers, and, ergo, B of A had bitten the hand that bailed it. On the other hand, B of A received taxpayer funds with the understanding that it wouldn't make boneheaded loans to risk borrowers like -- you guessed it! -- Republic.

Bank of America extending credit should have been enough to end the story. Workers will get severance, Republic will slide from the news, and we should all be able to go back to trying to decipher the redacted, and no doubt delicious, language the governor used when trying to fill the Obama Senate seat.

But there's a coda to this symphony that shows the new political world banks operate under post-TARP.

J.P. Morgan Chase entered the mix, saying it would extend loans to Republic, too. Chase, it turns out, lent $12 million to Republic last year to keep it in business and even got a minority stake for its trouble. (Those loans are now worthless.) Now, it will throw another $400,000, earmarked specifically for worker severance. Those who didn't sleep through Economics 101 see the dilemma here: a company without revenue cannot hope to repay a loan. Therefore, Chase will not recoup its latest loan, nor will Bank of America.

What does Chase have to say to justify the move? Funny, that: company representatives are silent in the Chase press release announcing the move. BUT, there are two people quoted in the release: Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez and state Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Fitting spokespeople for a semi-private enterprise in a post-bailout world.

Thain, according to the WSJ, is fighting with the compensation committee of Merrill to get a $10 million bonus he feels he's entitled to. The committee isn't keen on the idea of paying it out, particularly since most of Wall Street has seen its execs forgo bonuses. Cuomo, who has been critical of Wall Street pay, says he finds it 'shocking' that Thain is seeking bonuses of that size.

Put aside the merits of each camp in this. There's actually some history repeating itself. Eliot Spitzer, before his short but wonderfully entertaining tenure as N.Y. governor, went after NYSE chair Dick Grasso because of his pay and ultimately forced Grasso's ouster from the NYSE in 2003.

Thain, you'll recall, was shortly thereafter tapped to become NYSE CEO, a job he held until being picked late last year to run Merrill.

So, in short, Thain got his job because of a row between a financial executive and a N.Y. attorney general. Because of that, he should know to tread lightly. These wars are often nasty, and rarely fought on the merits of the arguments.

Or, maybe Thain knows that some things are worth the battle. The Grasso lawsuit went away, Dick kept all his compensation and Spitzer got into trouble for briefs of a different kind.

UPDATE: WSJ now reports Thain is requesting no bonus. Probably a politically smart move.

According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 36% of mortgage holders who had received a re-worked mortgage from their bank were late on payments three months after they got the new loan terms.

Worse, 58% of mortgage holders were more than 30 days late six months after their loan modifications.

What does this mean? A number of things. First, some of these mortgages were so badly underwritten that borrowers, even with a rework, can't hope but stay current (a situation that will only get worse as unemployment rises).

Second, some reworks just aren't good enough and will probably have to be modified further.

And, lastly, the numbers of delinquencies will rise even further, despite the best efforts of Congress and the banks.

But the good news is that it could be worse. The foreclosure number should be higher.

There was a sharp jump in the number of mortgages that are late by 90 days or above. Typically, those move from the delinquent column to the foreclosure one. But, banks are hesitant to foreclose, so they're remaining delinquent. In short, banks should be foreclosing on these homes, but they're not.

Why? Two reasons. First is the market: the housing market is so weak that a bank doesn't get much out of foreclosing on a home and selling it. They can make more simply letting the homeowner work through the problems and wait out either the homeowner getting his act together or the market improving so that a foreclosure is more financially worthwhile.

Second is political pressure. The Feds have been pressuring banks to halt foreclosures, and many have complied. Some states have also passed laws preventing banks from foreclosing.

The situation could get worse, particularly in light of the big job losses we saw today, but, if the trend holds, look for more delinquent mortgages and a flat rate in foreclosures.