* MC Hammer was at the Harvard Faculty Club yesterday, extolling the virtues of social media.
* William Cohan on Chris Flowers: Checkmate for a Wall Street wizard?
* Big Deals: PE/VC firms buying Skype, KKR kicking TCW’s tires.
* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London deflates, European shares dragged down by banks, the Nikkei edges higher and China and Hong Kong steady after recent slide.
* Leo Hindery (and others) on buying American: “The governments of most major developed countries support their own industries and, in these economic times, it only makes sense for Washington to do likewise.”
* Risk management group Kamakura Corp. says that global credit conditions improved in August.
* AIG CEO Robert Benmosche on Andrew Cuomo: “The worst thing that will ever happen to him is when he and I meet in the room and I close the door.”
* Does Microsoft hold weekly confabs known internally as “screw Google” meetings?
* Alan Patricof and former regulator Eric Dinallo wrote a NYT Op-Ed on Sunday, arguing against a proposal whereby VC firms would be forced to register with the SEC. Yesterday, Dinally discussed the issue on CNBC: