* Arielle Bikard: The SEC and the government shutdown scenario

* Stacey Higginbotham: Fusion-IO’s IPO filing is code for “please buy us”

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London opens soft, European shares tumble on Spain downgrade and the Nikkei hits a 5-week low.

* Carlos Slim widens his wealth lead over Bill Gates

* Eric Jackson: Apple’s best app might be a succession plan

* Rock bottom: Israeli VC funds raised zero dollars last year

* Bill Gross bails on U.S. Treasuries, one month after comparing Ben Bernanke to Satan

* Advent International is the latest PE shop to shutter operations in Japan

* Tweet of the Day: @dfjjosh I always find it funny when @TechCrunch insists on calling Verifone “Square-competitor Verifone”. What’s next, “Blekko-competitor Google”?

* Quote of the Day: “If you are evil in this life, you have to come back and sell to retailers in your next life,” Jeff Bussgang, Flybridge Capital Partners.

* AOL layoffs begin today, particularly on the content side. I’m sure Arianna will mention this the next time she talks about American job growth (or lack thereof)

* Politico: “Later today, Treasury will announce that the TARP bank programs have generated more than $36 billion in income for taxpayers to date. This number includes more than $14 billion in interest and dividend payments from the bank programs. In total the bank programs disbursed $245.46 billion and total cash returned is now $243.16 billion. Profit isn’t far off.”