Steve Jobs defended Apple Inc’s decision to maintain a $40 billion (£26 billion) cash pile and said it was better to save the money for bold risks, like acquisitions, than to spend it on stock buybacks or cash dividends. Link

I am all for creating a harmonious workplace, for propping employees up instead of beating them down and for catching more bees with honey than with vinegar. Kumbaya and all that. But do you know what? Sometimes you gotta be a jerk. Link 

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. economy is in a “nascent” recovery that still requires low interest rates to encourage demand by consumers and businesses once federal stimulus expires. Link

Lending by the banking industry fell by $587 billion, or 7.5 percent, in 2009, the largest annual decline since the 1940s, as the number of troubled financial institutions rose sharply, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported Tuesday. Link

One corporate drama playing out in the news is the fate of Saab — a now-orphan division of General Motors that appears will narrowly escape extinction by last-minute buyer Spyker. Link

More U.S. banks are restructuring troubled loans as commercial real-estate problems replace pressure from the residential housing bust. Link

Five former U.S. Treasury secretaries who have served both Republican and Democrat presidents have jointly called on Congress to implement the so- called Volcker Rule to limit the size and trading of banks. Link

With nearly $7 billion expected in the primary market this week, market participants said appetite for the flood of new issues is expected to be dictated by the pricing and structure of the deals. Link

Small business loans continue to dry up at the nation’s biggest banks. Eleven top TARP recipients – including Wells Fargo, by far the nation’s largest lender to small companies – cut their collective small business loan balance by more than $2.3 billion in December, according to a Treasury report released late Tuesday. Link

Put aside for a moment the populist pressure to regulate banking and trading. Ask the elder statesmen of these industries – giants like George Soros, Nicholas F. Brady, John S Reed, William H. Donaldson and John C. Bogle - where they stand on regulation, and they will bowl you over with their populism. Link