First Martin Wolf said it:

The world has witnessed well over 100 significant banking crises over the past three decades. The authorities have even had to rescue important parts of the US financial system – on most counts, the world’s most sophisticated – four times during the same period: from the developing country debt and “savings and loan” crises of the 1980s to the commercial property crisis of the early 1990s and now the subprime and securitised-credit crisis of 2007-08.

No industry has a comparable talent for privatising gains and socialising losses. Participants in no other industry get as self-righteously angry when public officials – particularly, central bankers – fail to come at once to their rescue when they get into (well-deserved) trouble.

(h/t to Paul Kedrosky)

On the same day, Barry Ritholtz said it:

The natural process of washing out excesses will lead to gnashing of teeth and begging for the Fed to intervene….those people who only believe in free market so long as they are going higher aren’t capitalists, they are socialists.

I’ve mentioned this myself too.

Read between the lines.

From Reuters: “Hewlett-Packard Co saw no change in spending from financial-services customers in its fiscal fourth quarter, Chief Executive Mark Hurd said on Monday.”

Mark Hurd deserves a lot of credit for jumping on a nasty situation with guns ablaze. Things are definitely getting better. But Mark also said:

“We do not have a huge exposure to the financial services industry.”

How about getting an opinion on financial services capital spending from a company that DOES have material exposure to the sector?

The Reuters headline smells funny. Even Barron’s piled on without a hint of skepticism.

I found this part more interesting:

Two weeks ago, financial services advertisers made up the single largest sector on the web, accounting for 34% of all impressions…

Watch the markets, and predict next quarter’s advertising take.

Nevermind that I am an investor in a Refco futures fund (gulp…hmm…gulp). It is cash that investors in the company need to worry about, as shit has certainly hit the fan over there.

A guy once touted as a “top flight” CFO is headed to the slammer, the company filed Chapter 11, and the vultures are now circling.

This stuff is old hat. The IPO, mutual fund, and insurance marketplaces have all seen their fair share of scandal. However, the future of financial services is all a matter of perspective. While one guy in the insurance business makes his way to jail, another involved in some shady dealings preps a new billion dollar investment fund.