Accountability
The whole mortgage mess, in my opinion, was built on the concept of making money with no responsibility. Mortgage brokers would loan money to any one; bankers provided the financing to mortgage companies and brokers; mortgage companies then sold the mortgages - good or bad - to banks who put the loans into neat securities that were sold to investors. So many hands, so little responsibility. The accountability ship has finally docked. Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch has lost his job (along with all the bond traders he fired), and I am guessing the heads of Bear Stearns and Citigroup won't survive. Mr. O'Neal received $150 million to go away (and people complain about Alex Rodriquez!) and the "go away'" packages for Mr. Purcell and Mr. Prince will be sizable too.

When will the Fed have its accountability moment? It tacitly approved this mess until it was too late. And don't believe for a second the Fed did not know what was happening in the housing market. Not to get political - I trust markets not politicians - but the current administration has not had much of an economic policy, except for a weak dollar (stronger corporate profits), easy credit (see above) to fuel consumer spending and low taxes. The booming housing market and the cash-rich (i.e. leveraged) consumer it spawned was too convenient, despite the wild debt.