As someone who is closer to the “man-on-the-street” as opposed to a Wall Street banker in the canyons of The Street, I just have to laugh when I see these Wall Street types trying to convince Mr. and Mrs. America that everything is working out fine and the crisis is over, just jump back in and start investing in stocks again. Seriously, how can these guys look anyone in the eye and keep a straight face when they start spouting this self-serving drivel. I mean they are all lined up at the Fed trough drinking as much of the low-cost borrowings as they can get, and for what? To keep their bonuses in the right place. So taxpayers are bailing out rich Wall Street bankers, who previously exercised extremely poor business judgement, and still continue to do so. Instead of being rewarded in a true capitalist fashion by getting their asses kicked, and their asses kicked out the door, they just jump on the Federal Reserve Welfare Program for Rich Wall Street Bankers.

So instead of representing everything that is good and noble about a capitalistic system, they actually portray just the opposite, steal from the blind, turn to the government for bailouts, lie to the public about the true nature of the situation, just so the cycle can start all over again.

Sure I think the financial institutions are misleading shareholders and the public about how they portray their assets and liabilities. But one has to ask – Where is the SEC? Where are the banking regulators? Where are the public auditors? What happened to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements? Where are the Attorneys General? Not only is the Fed duplicitous, but so are all the other authorities.

We hold ourselves out to be capitalists – If we truy believe this, then these financial institutions need to be held fully accountable for their poor judement and poor management teams and the market should step in and react in the same manner as they did with Bear Stearns – with one importnant difference, no backstopping from the Fed. Let the company go under, let the vultures pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollars, let the shareholders sue and hold management accountable. Gee, that kind of sounds like a homeowner that borrowed 100% on an option-ARM, no doc. loan going into foreclosure…..