Ever since Michael Douglas, as the effervescent Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, took the microphone in the Telda Papers Annual Meeting and espoused the “Greed is Good. Greed clears the mind…” principle, Wall Street CEOs have subscribed to that with all heart. Lehman Brothers is not an isolated case of infliction of this virus. However, it was one that along with Bear Sterns went down to the bowels of history.

But so did Merrill Lynch even though people are not smearing that house with the same black paint that Lehman is attracting. Is it because Thain managed to find a buyer in the nick of time? Does that absolve Merrill of all sins? It is interesting that Lehman’s CEO Richard Fuld went as far East as Korean Development Bank to seek a bailer for his bank. It is said that Fuld did not agree to the price KDB was willing to pay. It is further alleged – rather professed – that Fuld’s reluctance stemmed from what they teach a rookie trader to avoid – “never fall in love with your position” they say. Fuld, the longest running CEO on Wall Street, fell in love with his bank, his mortgage backed and realty assets that he could not accept were close to being worthless. Contrast this with Thain, who became Merrill’s boss in December 2007. It is said he sold off generous tranches of his MBS and related holdings at 22 cents a dollar. He did not shirk in selling his Bloomberg stake to shore up capital. Thain’s obsession was not his Bank, unlike Fuld’s.

To give credit where due, Lehman made its way to the banking elite on Wall Street (actually they are headquarted in mid-town NYC) because of Dick Fuld, who transformed a loss making bond-only house to a full-fledged investment bank. Perhaps it was this pride that prevented him from folding up early and with dignity.

The lack of transparency debate will continue for a while but I guess some of the arguments don’t hold water because we are talking of a public firm, squarely in the analyst spotlight. However, I think it is beyond the capability of a Banking Analyst to evaluate a firm that is investing in instruments that the most astute minds within the firm cannot fathom. Wall Street has this herd mentality of chasing a price, not for once stopping to evaluate whether the price is fair. It is all a pie-in-the-sky style of investing where any price for an asset is good as long as you can have another fellow buy it from you at the same or higher price. Unfortunately for Fuld there were not many chairs going around when the music stopped.

There is one fraternity that is getting away scot free in all this. The Credit Rating agencies. These were the people who were fuelling the mindless financial engineering that had taken over the asset backed securities structuring last year. For people who were entrusted to look under to hood of the esoteric CDO, CDO-squared and CDO-cubed, these agencies did a massive disserve to their professional ethics by assigning glorious ratings to papers that were rendered worthless in less than an year. Spare a stone for these institutions as we throw others at the Lehmans and the AIGs.

Like all storms, this too shall pass. Like all bad memories, this too shall be forgotten. Like all juicy stories, the next one will also emerge. Unfortunately, like all Gordon Gekkos, the next Banker will also raise to the “greed is good” philosophy like a Phoenix from the smoldering embers that are currently Wall Street.