It's the confidence, stupid

Post closing-bell update: TGIF. We have the weekend to steady our nerves, collect our frazzled brains and recover from today's whiplashing markets -- the Dow see-sawed 1,000 points today! It closed at 8,451, down 128 points but, as they say, "well off the session low." And the NASDAQ even has a little green arrow next to its name.

Volcker Update: He writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Fortunately, there is also good reason to believe that the means are now available to turn the tide. Financial authorities, in the United States and elsewhere, are now in a position to take needed and convincing action to stabilize markets and to restore trust.

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Even those companies with a good profit picture, substantial reserves, satisfactory cash flow -- in other words, whose fundamentals are sound -- are being sold off willy-nilly. It's pure panic. On the floor of the NASDAQ a little while ago a reporter said "It's out of control."

"Waterfall decline" is Bloomberg's way of describing the stock market crisis. CNBC is somewhat more shrill, calling it the "cascading crash." Whatever you call it, however, it is quite horrifying to watch the numbers. There is no confidence anywhere, and it seems that there are damned few who, by word or deed, can reinstill it.

The CNBC team is decrying the lack of leadership. They've invited financial industry leaders to step up to their microphones and provide a calming voice.

But who can break through the noise? Who has the credibility? Who is sufficiently at arm's length from the incumbent policy makers to provide a perspective that people can trust? Paul Volcker and Arthur Levitt come to mind, but neither one is without controversial current and past associations; and their policy decisions had a mixed bag of results in their former incarnations as Fed chairman and head of the SEC, respectively. Volcker, of course, is also an economic advisor to Barack Obama.

Any others you can think of?