Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Group, which was launched last month to “provide high-end merger & acquisition and corporate finance advice to technology companies globally,” is advising Google on the Microsoft/Yahoo! merger & acquisition deal according to a report by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael J. de la Merced on the DealBook blog.

Richard Fisher, president of the Fed’s Dallas bank, and Charles Plosser president of the Fed’s Philadelphia bank, both voted against the most recent cut in the Fed’s federal funds rate according to minutes of the March 18th Federal Open Market Committee meeting released on the Fed’s web site. The committee voted 8-2 to approve the rate cut.

Washington Mutual today announced a $7 billion bailout by an investment group led by TPG, the private equity firm. The group will seat two directors on WaMu’s board - David Bonderman, a co-founder of the equity firm, and Continental Airlines chairman & CEO Lawrence Kellner.

Washington Mutual may soon receive a much needed infusion of cash from a group of investors led by private equity firm TPG according to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal.

A high flier during the housing boom, Washington Mutual was eagerly making subprime loans to people who are now having trouble making good on those obligations.

The letter writing continues as Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock respond in a “Dear Steve” letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in the latest saga of the Yahoo!/Microsoft negotiations.

Keith Meister, the newest Motorola director, better have thick skin. Motorola announced today that it has come to an agreement with investor Carl Icahn, to name two of Icahn’s nominees to its board. Meister, who is managing director of Icahn’s investment funds, will join immediately.

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, told a Spanish newspaper that there is more than a 50% chance that the U.S. will enter a recession. Greenspan, who is in Spain promoting his new book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, told El Pais that he “would not describe the situation we are in as a recession, although the chances that we’ll have one are more than 50 percent.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a letter on Saturday to the Yahoo! board of directors giving them a deadline of three weeks to conclude a takeover agreement. In the letter Ballmer states “If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board.”