And while I am it there is another thing that really bothers me about the current federal government bailout of the banking sector.

Financial services firms such as Citigroup are failing because their business model does not work. Now, who would have ever guessed that a business model based on charging millions of consumers 12 to 30 percent annual interest for sub-prime mortgages and credit cards might not work? Who knew that consumers who took on those high interest loans and could pay them back would retire those debts early and not pay the interest, while customers unable to escape those usurious terms would increasingly default? And who would have ever thought there would eventually be problems after many of those accounts were bundled together and sold as interest-bearing securities?

The answer is that this was -- and remains -- a very stupid, unsustainable business model. And now the federal government steps in not just to save some favored banks and financial services firms but also to prop up that very same underlying stupid, unsustainable business model, which has already totally failed in the marketplace.

Meanwhile, in a development that has apparently gone completely unnoticed by leading economic policymakers from both political parties, new more consumer-friendly, less reckless financial services business models are starting to emerge in capital-starved towns and communities across the nation. These new models rely on peer-lending, are Internet-based, and often involve the facilitation of loans between parties who know each other or have reason to want to loan to one another. This is particularly true of the "lending circles" that are increasingly popular within ethnic and immigrant enclaves. These new types of community-based financial services enterprises are growing precisely because the traditional financial services business model has failed to meet the needs of communities and consumers. But the federal government isn't lifting a finger to help these more socially and economically constructive financial services operations emerge, grow and expand. No, the federal government doesn't even seem aware they exist.

Instead, the feds are busy picking winners and losers in a financial services sector that many of its customers regard as an adversary. It's like trying to pick the winner of a card game that is being played on a sinking ship.