Right. The biggest casualty of the current financial crisis is trust.

Wall Street, already viewed askance by Main Street for it’s lavish ways, now conjures images of the Strip in Las Vegas after a losing streak. The self-styled “Masters of the Universe” that Tom Wolfe skewered so justly in Bonfire of the Vanities, have duped us again – and themselves in the bargain. Lehman Bros., a brand that was almost a synonym of trust, has vaporized overnight. Banks are taking money from the Fed for nominal interest and hanging onto it, afraid even to loan it their fellow banks. Credit is “tight” because trust is the scarcest resource. Collateralized Debt Obligations? Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

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