If you follow me on Twitter, you're well aware that I personally lay the blame for a lot of what's going on in the economy and on Wall Street on insatiable greed... I need / give me more, now, faster... at whatever the cost.

Ben Stein penned a smart, thought-provoking piece in today's New York Times that builds on that by saying that this system of checks and balances we're supposed to have in this de-regulated business was a whole lote more about checks (as in writing them) than balances.

This bit captures it best:

Weren't fail-safe devices in place to guard against risk? Weren't governing watchdogs there to make sure that catastrophes could not happen? Weren't ratings agencies on the job to police what was going on in the canyons of Lower Manhattan?

To paraphrase Dr. Evil in the "Austin Powers" movies: How about "no," Scott?

Sadly, there's plenty of blame to go around. More troubling to me however, is the near total absence of accepting accountability for and yes, even expressing remorse for the damage done to our economy and millions of lives on the part of the seven, eight and nine figure titans of Wall Street.

Folks, your collective and individual credibility is on life support thanks to a series of self-inflicted wounds. And it's not going to come back any time soon unless you all start walking a much more authentic talk.