peHUB First Read

* Hank Paulson apparently gave Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum regular interviews throughout his term as Treasury Secretary. Here is the six-page result.

* 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: