The current recession has touched all sectors. The rules of the game have been changed, and nobody is safe. The paradigm is shifting.

One of the consequences of the current state is a new-found appreciation for savings in the U.S. A consumer who does not spend is bad news for the retail sector, and it is bad news for an economy dependent on consumer spending.

The one glimmer of hope comes from the restaurant space. When it became clear that this recession would be long and deep, consumers clamped wallets shut. Dining out in this environment was an easy luxury to cut.

It is being reported today in the Business Journal that the safest bank in the United States is Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC).

According to Global Finance, which will publish its analysis, "World's 50 Safest Banks" in its April issue, international banks dominate the rankings, which show the effects of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and credit crisis brought on by large Wall Street players. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is the top-rated U.S. bank at No. 21. European banks now dominate the rankings, with only four U.S. banks among the listing.

It will not surprise anyone to learn that I am asked every day by someone where the trillions of dollars in world capital that were here on one day disappeared to on the next. No doubt many of our astute readers are getting the same questions from their friends and associates.

Perhaps some readers out there wonder where $245 billion of Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) capital has gone and why they are surviving by a thread only at the graces of the American taxpayer. (Citi hit 97 cents a share during the day, closing at $1.02.) I will give you an example.

After a week of heavy selling, Wall Street is moving higher today despite news that the Federal Reserve expects to see the economy continue to deteriorate.

In its most recent Beige Book, the Fed noted that the chances of any sort of improvement in the economy looked "poor" in the short term, and that it did not expect to see any sort of recovery start to take place until at least the end of 2009 or perhaps even into 2010.

If we keep hearing about companies that are "too big to fail" what in the world are we doing allowing Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) to swallow up everything in their financial path so that they can become even bigger, potentially creating the next catastrophe!

During my tenure at BloggingStocks I have made some bonehead calls and some that were more astute. Among my better calls was the story I wrote 20 months ago, Break up Citigroup as soon as possible, and the follow on story a year later when nothing had changed: Citigroup should hire forensic auditors. My colleagues Peter Cohan and Douglas McIntyre made similar points.

Given these stories and the dialog I have had with many of our intelligent and equally frustrated readers, I have had thoughts of starting a non-profit organization to shadow the Securities and Exchange Commission that has been dormant for the last ten years. Instead of hiring Wall Street types to run the SEC we might do better hiring inquisitive university students, and not from the business or law schools, but the accounting, journalism and criminology programs.