1. Loyalty is overrated

President Barack Obama blasted Senate Republicans on Monday for blocking a small business assistance bill, calling their opposition "pure partisan politics."

The U.S. economy sputtered to a near stop in the second quarter, according to new estimates from the government released Friday, although the slowdown wasn't as bad as many had feared.

The financial crisis that destroyed some of the world's biggest banks and sent others to the brink of failure have changed Americans' idea of lending and borrowing. While most still seem to have no problems storing their money at banks small and large, a few trends indicate that everyone from consumers to some of the world's largest companies are straying away from large financial institutions as sources of funding.

U.S. stock futures popped Friday as investors digested a better-than-expected downward revision of second-quarter economic growth. Traders also awaited key speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the economic outlook and monetary policy.

Intel Corp. on Friday warned investors that its third-quarter revenue will fall below its forecasts as consumer demand for personal computers slipped.

Melissa Bean, a third-term representative from Illinois, is on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's radar, and not in a good way. Bean, a fellow Democrat who represents a wealthy swath of Chicago's northwest suburbs, crossed Pelosi back in December when she held up the financial reform bill to negotiate better terms for banks. And in May, she and other Wall Street-friendly Democrats forced the Speaker to scale back a package of tax cuts and benefits extensions for the unemployed because they objected to the measure's tax on venture capitalists.

Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word "book" in their names, is also trying to trademark the word "face," according to court documents.

President Obama's tax reform task force will deliver its long-overdue report on Friday offering a list of ways to improve the federal tax code.

The economy is slowing, the Fed is cautious about the recovery and the world's biggest chipmaker is lowering its sales forecast. But stocks rallied more than 1% Friday.