I’m the type who likes to develop a very deep expertise in just a few areas. I’m a social media pioneer, an award-winning entrepreneur, a decent home winemaker, a solid runner/triathlete/Adventure Racer (13 years running…), and hopefully a pretty good family man. 

So it is rare that I venture into an area in which I’m a non-expert to offer my opinion. But today I can’t help myself.

My Vistage Chair Dick Singer forwarded to me a single sobering PowerPoint slide by JPMorgan (#2 below) illustrating the dramatic decline in the valuation of banking stocks over the past year or so. JPMorgan itself is featured in the graphic. The problem is that it unintentionally reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of numbers — by the very people we’re trusting to help lead us out of this financial crisis (toggle between slides 5 & 6 below). Worse, it was apparently vetted and propagated by Bloomberg, a news organization that I, for one, would expect to employ a critical eye over all matters financial. But they did not.

Seeing this and being unable to contain my frustration as a taxpayer who has recently expended his share of $700 billon, I produced this:

[slideshare id=958616&doc=banks-by-mkt-cap-2009-vs-2007-1233087555794432-3&w=425]

Let me know if I’m the only one who is both outraged and terrified by this. That would be reassuring but I suspect it’s unlikely.

Depending on your comments, I may or may not stick to my knitting in the future.