MIDDAY UPDATE: TARP, HAMP, and retail

Today Jeremy Hobson spoke to former Democratic Ted Kaufman, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel. About $50 billion of the $700 billion TARP bank bailout was set aside for the mortgage modification program, HAMP. The program was expected to help three to four million foreclosures, but now it looks like it may only helps 700- to 800- thousand.

We got retail numbers from the Commerce Department today. Today marked the fifth straight month of rising retail numbers. Juli Neimann says this is a mixed bag for retailers, and that consumers are driven by deals, which is effecting stores like Best Buy. In other retail news, JC Penney opens the first web-store inside Facebook.

And finally, Steve Chiotakis spoke to former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown about his new book “Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization” in our new series, The Big Book.