If you've been following the twisted path of financial reform, you may have heard that one controversial provision, exempting car dealers from oversight by the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, looks like it's going to be included in the final bill, despite the objections of both Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, the two chairmen responsible for negotiating the final bill. President Obama too says he opposes the carve-out, but it won't stop him from signing the bill.

One upcoming concern for the financial-reform conference is what to do about a resolution fund. Under the House bill, regulators would collect a $150 billion tax on big financial institutions so that regulators have funds available to liquidate a firm in the case of its failure. The Senate took its $50 billion liquidation fund out of the bill because Republicans preferred seeing taxpayers fund the resolution of a failing bank, rather than the banks themselves.

There's a bit of a lost message in the financial-reform debate right now: American businesses will benefit from the Wall Street overhaul currently before Congress. Time's Barbara Kiviat looks at why the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will help firms:

I know I've been throwing a lot of debt graphs at you lately, but bear with me, because this one is awesome:

Via Columbia Journalism Review, Graham Summers has a fantastic post up at Zero Hedge, wherein he crunches the numbers on just how hard it is for the average American family, a two-child household, to get by.

So there's been plenty of back and