Elizabeth Warren proposes four common factors for a workable bailout, based on success from the past. Transparency, assertiveness, accountability, and clarity. By these criteria, this from the Fed is a FAIL:

The U.S. Federal Reserve has told Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other banks to keep mum on the results of “stress tests” [based on existing financial models] that will [if the models are, now, accurate] gauge their ability to weather the recession [their putative solvency], people familiar with the matter said.

Jeebus, you know things are bad when they can't even release fake results. Or maybe they're just holding onto the results to the insiders can assume their positions and do a little trading. Who knows?

The Fed wants to ensure that the report cards don’t leak during earnings conference calls scheduled for this month. Such a scenario might push stock prices lower for banks perceived as weak and interfere with the government’s plan to release the results in an orderly fashion later this month.

CNBC really is running the country, isn't it? Why aren't we market timing all government reports, anyhow?

More transparency FAIL:

Banks should stay silent because a focus on the tests would be “a harmful distraction” from earnings, said Scott Talbott, senior vice president for government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington.

“It is premature for banks to talk about the stress tests,” Talbott said yesterday. “They aren’t finalized yet [!!] and there is no framework to evaluate the results.”

FAIL:

Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins declined to discuss the tests yesterday after his bank reported a record first-quarter profit that beat the most optimistic Wall Street estimates.

“We haven’t commented on regulatory matters and we won’t start now,” Atkins said in an interview. “We don’t comment on the process.”

FAIL:

In a separate interview later, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard declined to say whether the bank had been told by regulators to keep silent. “We don’t comment on our discussions and conversations with regulators and officials,” she said.

Models that nobody understands, blew up the last time, with no framework to test the results, and a predetermined outcome (THE BANKSTERS NEED MORE MONEY SOON SOON SOON).

Where's the stress? FAIL!