As a journalist, these are the days of riches more embarrasing than Dick "Blameless" Fuld's. The choices for material for this column run like wild horses every day--which one to ride? Yet, the deeper into the dissonance I go, the more I yearn for a return to telling positive corporate leadership stories.

Enough with the drama and upheaval already, but it just keeps coming. The latest special--the S.E.C.'s reported "oversight" of allegations that Morgan Stanley boss John J. Mack fed inside trading tips to his pal at hedge fund giant Pequot Capital, and subsequent firing of one of their own for his too-vigorous attempts to question Mack in the matter.

Is there some sort of Mafia-style syndicate going on with our big banks and our government--a regulatory and enforcement branch, no less? In the original Godfather, Michael Corleone just wanted to play life straight. Yet, the illegitimacy of his family's dealings inexorably drew him into darkness; with the screeching of a subway train outside serving to underscore his conflict and the imminence of his tearing away from his true self, he shoots Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo and police Captain McCluskey in cold blood inside Louis's Restaurant in the Bronx. Journalistically, it would be a savory and welcome thing to be Michael before he pulls the trigger, but I fear it will be a while before I stop putting bullets in the chamber of my pen.

All inherencies of greed and avarice aside, I'm all for the free market--but not if it's being run Mafia-style. It would be nice to contemplate a Rudy Guiliani-style routing of those responsible for the excessive risk-taking, blind indifference and moral turpitude that is now causing--and is certain to cause for a very long time--a great deal of harm to the overall stability, functionality and well-being of lives around the globe. Let' s start with the estimate from Congress' top budget analyst that Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months. And as we head into a consumer-led recession, with ad-hoc interest rate plays by central banks around the globe, there is no visibility on where this crisis bottoms out.

Now we have 35-year old Goldman Sachs Group alum Neel Kashkari heading up the Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability--he's in charge of the $700 billion bailout package. That's a gargantuan task for young shoulders, especially when it comes to unraveling the Gordian knot of hard-to-value assets entwining the heart of the crisis.

We'll get an early peek at the complexity on October 23, when the credit-default swaps relating to the Lehman bankruptcy get auctioned. Nobody had a grip on all that laid-off and passed-along risk as it was being created; what can we expect from "Mr. Bailout" and whatever private asset managers and other financial wizards charged with the job when it comes to cutting a recovery path through the thickets? "I have to go to the bathroom," said Michael Corleone, triggering a narrowing of his enemies' eyes.

Jeff Heilman

10/8/08