Satcon joins Evergreen, Solyndra, and Abound on the list of government-backed solar energy firms that have filed for bankruptcy. The firm seems to have won a $3 million grant from the Department of Energy and pieces of other federal grants (here, here, here, and here.)

A press release announcing the new president and CEO of Martha's Vineyard Savings Bank describes the bank's new chief as someone who "has worked closely with bank regulators throughout his career."

A Vineyard Gazette article about the leadership transition quotes the bank's chief financial officer and interim CEO, Thomas Sharkey, as saying that the new CEO "has experience in dealing with regulators." The newspaper says that the bank needed FDIC approval for its selection of the new president and CEO.

This is where we're at now with banking in America — the regulators are choosing the bank executives, and the bank executives are being chosen for their experience in dealing with regulators. This may be a slightly unusual example, but it may not be all that unusual.

Slate awards the state of Minnesota "the grand prize in this week's unexpectedly heated competition for most creative use of government to stifle innovation" for telling California-based online education firm Coursera that it is not allowed to offer its free classes to Minnesota residents:

A policy analyst for the state's Office of Higher Education told The Chronicle that Minnesota is simply enforcing a longstanding state law requiring colleges to get the government's permission to offer instruction within its borders....As the Chronicle notes, with admirable restraint, "It's unclear how the law could be enforced when the content is freely available on the Web." And keep in mind, Coursera isn't offering degrees—just free classes.

The Slate article suggests that Minnesotans seeking enlightenment "hit a wifi hotspot in North Dakota on your way back from buying fireworks."

Powerline reports on a memo from CNN's Mark Whitaker that seeks to explain why President Obama got to speak for four minutes more than Mitt Romney in the Hofstra presidential debate the other night. Says the memo, "On why Obama got more time to speak, it should be noted that Candy and her commission producers tried to keep it even but that Obama went on longer largely because he speaks more slowly. We're going to do a word count to see whether, as in Denver, Romney actually got more words in even if he talked for a shorter period of time."

The Clinton-Obama dynamic is getting more dramatic by the hour. Here is the latest YouTube video of Bill Clinton.

Link via the Washington Examiner.

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has a column seeking to explain why the press applauded President Obama in the debate when he said his pension isn't as big as Mitt Romney's: "affluent people with elitist pretensions often have a strong distaste for the wealthy, especially those, like Romney, who earned their riches by being successful in business. If you want to find bitterness against 'the 1%,' don't look at 'the 99%.' Instead, focus in on the 98th percentile." Mr. Taranto also has some shrewd analysis of Candy Crowley's performance as debate moderator, particularly in the Libya portion of the debate.

Capital is mobile. From CNBC:

Real estate agents say that the number of multi-million-dollar real-estate listings in Paris has jumped more than 25 percent over last year -- due in part to the threat of the new income tax....brokers say the 75 percent tax on the wealthiest French citizens has contributed to the decision by many of the them to sell their homes in anticipation of a possible move to another country.

"There is a real flow of French people leaving because of the taxes," said Charles-Marie Jottras, president of Daniel Feau Group, the luxury real-estate brokers in Paris.

Link via Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's Harvard freshman roommate Scott Androes, who had cancer and no health insurance and who was the topic of a post here Sunday night, died on Monday, Mr. Kristof writes in a follow-up column published today.

The follow-up column offers the additional detail that "last year," before the cancer was diagnosed, Mr. Androes "earned $13,000."

The Associated Press reports: "Recent government figures show nearly 10 percent of borrowers using federal student loans in the most recently measured timeframe had already defaulted within two years of starting repayment."

There are already income-based repayment programs that allow student loan borrowers to pay less if they are earning less, particularly if they go into "public service." But now that the government has supplanted private lenders in the student loan market, it's only a matter of time before pressure grows for student loan forgiveness along the lines of that that housing advocates have urged for mortgage debt or foreclosure prevention.

One other telling point about last night's debate was when President Obama was talking about American diplomats serving overseas and said, "these aren't just representatives of the United States, they are my representatives." It was as if Mr. Obama thought that second job was more important than "just" the first. It just struck me as an odd formulation.

The New York Times, which is constantly editorializing about how taxes should be raised on the rich, has a whole page of coverage today advising wealthy people how to minimize their taxes. One article is about QTIP, a "qualified terminable interest property trust." Another talks about "a so-called Crummey trust," described as a vehicle that allows "the wealthy to give away money without really giving it away." These are good examples of how the estate tax and other efforts to raise taxes wind up enriching lawyers and accountants rather than achieving the goals outlined by the Times editorial writers of raising revenues for the government and reducing income inequality.

From a New York Times news article headlined "$11 million severance reported for Murdoch Aide":

A former employee of The News of the World, the paper at the heart of the scandal, said that the figure of about $11.3 million that was reported in The Financial Times on Tuesday was consistent with the figure being discussed within News International at the time that Ms. Brooks quit.

The former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality clause in his own severance agreement with the company...

1. "I want to make sure we keep our Pell Grant program growing." [And tuition increasing along with them, enriching all those college professors and administrators and building ever-fancier dormitories and student centers.]

2. [to a 20-year-old college student] "I'm gonna make sure you get a job." [Later in the debate] "government doesn't create jobs". Which one is it, governor?

3. As pointed out by President Obama in the debate, as governor of Massachusetts Mr. Romney stood in front of a coal plant and said it kills people. Here is the YouTube video.

4. "On day one, I will label China a currency manipulator, which will allow me as president to be able to put in place, if necessary, tariffs where I believe that they are taking unfair advantage of our manufacturers." Great, the Republican candidate wants to impose protectionist taxes on imports from overseas. That worked just great when Smoot and Hawley tried it in 1930. And if China is manipulating its currency, just what exactly is Ben Bernanke doing to the dollar?

This YouTube video of Bill Clinton talking about Governor Romney's tax cut plan is really something. It's presented as something that will help President Obama get re-elected, but if the Republicans were smart they'd pay to air the video on television, because it portrays Mitt Romney as a tax-cutter instead of as a tax-raiser. What could be better than a video with a trusted figure like Bill Clinton telling Americans that Mitt Romney really is going to cut their taxes by $5 trillion! Why do Democrats think it will help them win the election to tell voters that Mitt Romney wants to cut taxes? Mitt Romney may want to just come out and say you know what, Bill Clinton is right, I do want to cut your taxes, and President Obama wants to raise them, and if you want higher taxes, vote for him, and if you want lower taxes, vote for me. I actually suspect Bill Clinton knows this and wants Mr. Romney to win so that Hillary Clinton can run against him in 2016.

Government-backed battery maker A123 Systems filed for bankruptcy. The Boston Globe has details:

In 2009, A123 held an initial public stock offering, raising about $380 million with its initial stock offering. Also in 2009, A123 received a $249.1 million grant from the US Department of Energy to build battery manufacturing operations in Michigan.

At its peak in 2009, A123 stock traded above $25 a share. Shares were trading at 6 cents Tuesday afternoon.