ANOTHER week, another loss of 100 points from the slowly sinking Straits Times Index.
Since the start of the year, STI has lost 13.5 per cent. About half of the loss took place in the past two weeks.
When will all this bleeding end?
Apparently, we are not the only party beating our chests in frustration over the erosion of our savings and investments, as a result of the collapse in stock prices brought on by the global financial crisis.
One angry US senator ticked off Fed chairman Ben Bernanke last night for failing to halt the rot in the tottering US financial system which was responsible for so much of the woes suffered by the rest of the world.
"People just about have had enough," Senator Lindsey Graham told Mr Bernanke. They are tired of all the money being poured into troubled US lenders "and nothing seems to be changing".
For the rest of us watching the broadcast live on CNBC, Senator Graham's outburst encapsulates our exasperation with the lack of progress in getting the banks back on their feet again. Some of that money came from Temasek Holdings and GIC when they invested in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup respectively.
While I could not recall what Mr Bernanke had said in the past about the troubled US lenders whose oversight came under his jurisdiction, I was taken aback by what he had to say last night about beleaguered AIG which had been supervised by the New York Insurance Commissioner.
Nothing had made him more angry, he said. AIG had exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system and there was no oversight on its financial products division which was basically a hedge fund which made a huge number of irresponsible bets and took big losses.
It takes two hands to clap. Surely, the parties at the other end of AIG's transactions should also take some responsibilities for the problems which the insurer now finds itself embroiled in, some senators wanted to know.
But this is the part of Mr Bernanke's testimony which I find troubling. "I just don't know what to do about it," he said, even though he was as angry as everyone else.
He might only have been referring to problems at AIG but his frank admission strikes fear into the rest of us. Have the gale force winds whipped up by the financial storm reached such an intensity that even he is finding himself at a loss as to how to steer the ship safely back to shore?
At this juncture, it is useful to recount what HSBC chairman Stephen Green had to say about the failings, which had afflicted his otherwise well-run bank, when its full-year results were released on Monday.
"Inappropriate products were sold inappropriately by many…Underlying all these events is a question about the culture and ethics of the industry. People had given up asking whether something was the right thing to do and focused on only whether it was legal and complied with the rules," he said.
As if to underline that such a culture still persists in our own backyard despite the heavy losses suffered by investors, I got an e-mail from a reader this morning alleging that some financial advisers had been offering incentives to their clients to draw down on their CPF accounts to buy financial products.
He wrote: "The markets gave exceptional returns from 2004 to 2007 which created a superficial win-win situation. A win for the investors taking profit, a win for the advisor in terms of increased remuneration and a win for the firm in terms of extra fees earned."
But while the market collapse had stopped such "churning" practices, the problem still persists. "Errant financial advisors are waiting for the next upturn to exploit the situation again," he warned.
Looks like a seismic change in attitude towards finances in general will be needed in order to get the global financial system up on its feet again.
No wonder even Mr Bernanke is in despair. There is no easy solution in sight.