After all the kerfuffle the last few weeks over the financial crisis, with congressmen being told that there would be panic in the streets and martial law if they didn’t pass the bailout bill, it now turns out that it was a tempest in a teapot. The Guardian is reporting that many Wall Street banks have decided that the situation isn’t that bad, and they will — in the words of Thomas Caldwell, chairman and CEO of Caldwell Financial, a billion dollar fund manager — “tough it out”.

What’s really ironic is that the reason cited for many of the companies deciding to forego the bailout is the bill’s limitations on stock-related pay and its ban on ‘golden parachutes’ for executives. I guess those CEOs are more concerned about their own bottom line than their company’s or even our country’s bottom line.

Well, our government sure did turn the page on rampant Wall Street greed. Not.