Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Monsanto, Blackwater, Bank of America, Citigroup, Cigna, Aetna, Enron, Arthur Andersen, Mercury Insurance, Philip Morris ...These are just a few corporate names that engender feelings of distrust, anger and betrayal. They represent scandals, greed, blatant disregard for public welfare, lavish spending of taxpayer money and other negatives, and serve as reminders about how corporate wrongdoing has brought shame on our country and harmed millions.

But as the public grows more distrustful of big corporations, corporations are fighting back by evolving more clever and sophisticated forms of public relations. Their goal? To manipulate public attitudes and assure that widespread negative feelings don't block their ability to do business. Increasingly, corporations are engaging in variations on the theme of "corporate social responsibility," to try and persuade us that they can be trusted again.

Last week, in the middle of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s testimony in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), the lights went out.

According to Greenspan, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were to blame for the housing bubble. The Fed may have noticed, but it couldn’t really do anything about it. "Regulators cannot successfully use the bully pulpit to manage asset prices, and they cannot calibrate regulation and supervision in response to movements in asset prices. Nor can they fully eliminate the possibility of future crises,” said Greenspan.

After that self-serving drivel, no wonder the God’s zapped the electrical system. There was a lot Greenspan could have done to rein in the housing bubble, not the least of which was simply telling people there was a bubble as housing prices began following an unprecedented and unsustainable path.