Larry Fink

Even the revolution had its lighter moments. For documentary photographer Larry Fink, a committed '60s radical bent on exposing the ills of society through scenes of blunt tragicomedy, that meant less time in the streets and more time with the debutantes. More nights at fancy parties and the disco inferno of Studio 54. There were gallery soirees and backwoods baptisms captured in black-and-white images that revealed a strange empathy beneath the often harsh lights and shadows of Fink's flash.

When the U.S. government needed expert help in evaluating the bonds that caused the 2008 financial crisis, there were only two men it could turn to. Larry Fink, the founder of investment giant BlackRock Inc., and Bill Gross, the founder of Pacific Investment Management Co., are the generally acknowledged kings of the bond universe. Together, the companies they run hold approximately 7.5% of all outstanding bonds. The $1.2 trillion managed by BlackRock and the $1.1 trillion at Pimco dwarf the holdings of the next largest bond players, according to data from Pensions & Investments.

Worries about the rapid rise in U.S. government and household borrowing in recent years haven't been lost on Bill Gross or Larry Fink, two of the world's biggest bond investors. At a financial conference at UCLA last week, the two men acknowledged that they were uneasy about certain elements of the debt boom, particularly the rising U.S. dependence on foreign creditors. But neither Gross, chief investment officer at Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co.

Worries about the rapid rise in U.S. government and household borrowing in recent years haven't been lost on Bill Gross or Larry Fink, two of the world's biggest bond investors. At a financial conference at UCLA last week, the two men acknowledged that they were uneasy about certain elements of the debt boom, particularly the rising U.S. dependence on foreign creditors. But neither Gross, chief investment officer at Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co.

When the U.S. government needed expert help in evaluating the bonds that caused the 2008 financial crisis, there were only two men it could turn to. Larry Fink, the founder of investment giant BlackRock Inc., and Bill Gross, the founder of Pacific Investment Management Co., are the generally acknowledged kings of the bond universe. Together, the companies they run hold approximately 7.5% of all outstanding bonds. The $1.2 trillion managed by BlackRock and the $1.1 trillion at Pimco dwarf the holdings of the next largest bond players, according to data from Pensions & Investments.

"Jan Kesner Gallery Tenth Anniversary Exhibition"--Larry Fink's 1977 photo, above, is part of an exhibition that also includes Ansel Adams, Gary Winogrand and others. Ends Dec. 31. * "Metamorphosis"--Nine mixed-media illustrations and sculpted furniture by Michele D. Houston go on display Friday at the California African-American Museum in Exposition Park. * "California Impressionists"--An exhibition of paintings by such California artists as Franz A.

Money management giant BlackRock Inc. agreed Thursday to buy Barclays Global Investors -- including the iShares exchange-traded funds -- creating the world's biggest asset manager. The deal would boost BlackRock's assets to more than $2.7 trillion from $1.3 trillion, vaulting it well above its nearest rival, State Street Corp., which manages about $1.4 trillion. The takeover is a potential coup for 56-year-old BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink, a UCLA grad who founded the company in 1988.

Click here to download TV listings for the week Nov. 25 - Dec. 1 in PDF format This week's TV Movies   CBS This Morning Baseball player R.A. Dickey; Larry Fink, BlackRock. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS Today Warren Buffett; Scarlett Johansson; Phillip Phillips performs. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC Good Morning America Dolly Parton performs; Donald Driver; performance by the Muppets. (N) 7 a.m. KABC Live With Kelly and Michael Helen Hunt; Bryan Adams performs.

As the stock market continues its steady march upwards, it is attracting more bullish believers from even the most bearish precincts of Wall Street. The most notable bear to join the bulls is Nouriel Roubini, whose nickname, Dr. Doom, tells you all you need to know about his past prognostications. Roubini's firm, Roubini Global Economics, is now making big bets on the stock market because of the firm's faith in recent moves by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.  “We're a believer; we're celebrating.

all day Movies Director John Dahl caused a sensation in 1994 with the release of not one but two critically acclaimed films--"Red Rock West" and "The Last Seduction." He follows up those trend-setting films noir with "Rounders," a look at New York's high-stakes poker underground. The film also features one of the hottest casts of the year: Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Gretchen Mol, John Malkovich, Martin Landau and Famke Janssen.

Even the revolution had its lighter moments. For documentary photographer Larry Fink, a committed '60s radical bent on exposing the ills of society through scenes of blunt tragicomedy, that meant less time in the streets and more time with the debutantes. More nights at fancy parties and the disco inferno of Studio 54. There were gallery soirees and backwoods baptisms captured in black-and-white images that revealed a strange empathy beneath the often harsh lights and shadows of Fink's flash.

While vast swaths of events of the financial crisis have been minutely chronicled, particularly the collapse of Lehman Bros., the people and culture have remained largely unanalyzed. The executives at the center of the crisis have been portrayed as supermen or cartoon villains. Greg Farrell ably remedies these flaws in an immaculately reported book, "Crash of The Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America. " It traces the paths of Bank of America Corp.

Books about Wall Street keep on coming. Just behind Andrew Ross Sorkin's "Too Big to Fail" comes "The Sellout" by Charles Gasparino, the aggressive financial reporter for CNBC who was as close as anyone to the Street's big wayward figures before they met their downfall. Gasparino, who figures in Ross Sorkin's account and has been sparring with him as a result, has written a shorter, more idiosyncratic and more partisan narrative of how things went wrong. It delves into history in ways that are often enlightening.