Can Wall Street firms be believed?

No, Wall Street firms should not be believed. They have continuously lied. What you should have mentioned is the claim by some that they did not need money when they were ALREADY in the process of raising money. Look at Lehman for example. They claimed to have adequate capital and the following day (or day after) news of a convertible was announced. That is not something that is done in the spur of the moment. They knew this was underway so essentially they were lying. There is no other way to view it. For the record, Merrill Lynch is a disaster and Thain is going to have egg on his face as this credit crunch evolves for his incessant lies.

Your next story should be "Should the Fed be believed?"

The just released results regarding the Bear portfolio is a complete farce although I am not one bit surprised because I did not expect an honest assessment from them.