No entity is exempt and, in our world, just about everyone can be engaged in some form of fraudulent activity and theft, be it office supplies, time, gasoline, telephone calls, cash, assets, food, liquor, pictures hanging on the wall, bed sheets, dishes, narcotics, credit cards, checks, information, and whatever else is available for the taking or diversion.

FORBES: How Do You Spot The Thief Inside Your Company?

The harbor wall was disappearing beneath spilling sheets of water.

NEWYORKER: Fjord of Killary

By that time, the major players on Wall Street realized that their own balance sheets needed reinforcement.

FORBES: Cash Equivalents Don't Act Like Cash When It Counts

I've been joking lately that my room is exactly the same as it was -- my mother still has the house -- same bed sheets, same pictures on the wall, flowered pictures I bought when I was 16.

WHITEHOUSE: Remarks by the First Lady at a Campaign Event

On the wall opposite was a bright Mediterranean scene of whitewashed houses and sheets drying on a line.

NEWYORKER: Hand on the Shoulder

"Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this programme will help improve assets values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets, " US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in the Wall Street Journal before the programme was officially announced.

BBC: US unveils $1tn toxic asset plan

Replacing top executives is becoming a popular way for Wall Street firms to signal they are taking the problems in the credit markets, and on their own balance sheets, seriously.

FORBES: The Morgan Stanley Shuffle