peHUB First Read

* James Surowiecki on the furor over the Obama Administration's seeming double standard for Detroit and Wall Street: "There is an obvious explanation: it’s relatively easy to see how the banks can return to profitability, while it’s much harder to see how the automakers can become profitable again, at least in the absence of the kind of radical restructuring you’d get through bankruptcy or some kind of deal with the bondholders." * Mark Reiboldt: Is venture capital a fading asset class? * Bill Gross: The future of investing, revolution or evolution? * Morning Call: U.S. futures fade, European shares dropped by falling oil and bleak econ data, the Nikkei rises on U.S. auto woes and Hong Kong dips on telco drops. * Conficker is turning out to be a dud. * VC-backed exits were hard to come by in Q1. Zero IPOs, and just 56 acquisitions.