Jonathan Weil

Throughout the extraordinary surge in Apple Inc.’s share price, a persistent question has lingered: Why is the stock still so cheap? One overlooked answer may be that Apple’s accounting isn’t as conservative as it used to be.

The guilty pleas last week by two former Credit Suisse Group traders, on charges of falsifying their company’s asset values, revive an age-old question: How dumb do you have to be to get criminally convicted for a fraud you committed while working at a bank deemed too big to fail?

So many times when the big credit- rating companies have embarrassed themselves, the world has sighed and chalked it up to a business model that by design invites corruption and incompetence. Perhaps never before have the public’s expectations for the industry been lower.

Sometimes a single fact stands out amid all the clutter, offering a flash of insight and clarity. Here is one of them: Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is a co-chairman of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland.

If you and I were in a bar together, and you suffered a nasty bump on your head when I accidentally whacked you with a pool cue, there probably would be no disputing that my action caused your harm. But for my careless swing of the stick, the injury wouldn’t have happened.

There’s a simple explanation for why the world’s zombie banks remain so reluctant to write off worthless assets and tap the equity markets for fresh capital. They don’t want to end up like UniCredit SpA.

Let’s boil down the Securities and Exchange Commission’s claims last week against six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives to their essence. Every disclosure that the SEC says amounted to fraud is something the government blessed or turned a blind eye to as it was happening.

If you were stranded on a desert island the past two months and upon your return to civilization tried to learn why MF Global Holdings Ltd. had collapsed, you might find that some of the standard explanations don’t make much sense.

The never-ending comedy that is Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis has reached its Otter moment. That’s when the world realizes the fundamental principle guiding every important government decision is this: “I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!”

Last week gave us one of the oddest pairings of financial news stories in some time. The better the earnings of U.S. banks, it seems, the more nervous investors get about the banks’ health.