I’m a mortgage holder, nervous about the economy, employed in an industry that is sensitive to ups and downs, dismayed about the losses in my 401(k) mutual-fund retirement savings, dubious about the future of Social Security and furious staggered by perversions of our free-market system. And, oh yes, a voter who refuses to give up on the system. I think I fit the profile. I’m one of those whom Wall Street, the Bush administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve want to soothe.

They want my confidence back. They want me to believe that business integrity has been restored. I only wish.

True, we can’t discount the things we see, such as high fliers dragged down to earth by the cold weight of handcuffs and the encouraging new tone of indignation in our politics. Let’s also acknowledge the changes we hear about and cannot see: this fresh mood of caution in the nerve centers of our economy, from the boardrooms to the watchdogs.

But when showboating stock promoter Jack Grubman walked off with millions of dollars last week, the conclusion was unavoidable. We haven’t really gotten to the heart of the matter: There is far more than ledger-book fraud and allegations of fraud behind Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Andersen, the IPO insider gimmicks, Qwest, Adelphia, Wall Street analysis flimflams and the rest. If we have learned anything during these grim few months it’s that our market system has been driven askew on a grand scale.

Yet fundamental American ideals, like fairness and rightness, still are not being seriously discussed in the context of this most fundamental American undertaking. For me, and judging by my mail, for a good many people, faith in the system does not hinge on whether a few outlaws eventually draw prison time for fraud. Or whether CEOs attest to the honesty of their accounting. Or whether Bill Clinton is as much to blame as George W. Bush.

Confidence needs deeper soil to take root. Grubman was the top-dog telecommunications barker at Salomon Smith Barney. He talked his way right into corporate boardrooms and then traded on his reputation, to quote him, as the man investors could trust to know “what’s going on.” He happily took credit as leader of the 1990s telecom investment frenzy. He stuck with it almost to the end, and then weaseled out by saying, oops, he wasn’t really in the know after all.

Because he was high on companies like WorldCom during the stock run-up, the telecom industry was high on him. Salomon made almost $1 billion providing merger advice and underwriting telecommunications securities. Grubman made $20 million a year himself. “What used to be a conflict is now a synergy,” Grubman told Business Week a couple of years ago.

While Grubman was in full thunder about the opportunities in telecom investments, executives inside the industry were already seeing trouble and had begun what would be a $14.2-billion stock cash-out, according to The Wall Street Journal. Then “pop.” While Grubman and Salomon and the other insiders counted their riches, rank-and-file investors lost a reported $2 trillion in telecommunications. This included retirement dreams of countless thousands of working Americans. More than 35,000 people have been thrown out of their jobs as one after another of these companies declared bankruptcy. These are big numbers. Lots of disappointment, plenty of broken dreams, many sheep led to slaughter.

So what happens to Grubman? With investigators circling, he leaves Salomon by “mutual agreement,” whatever that means, and rakes in a reported $13 million severance package. According to some reports, he kept a $15 million bonus that was supposed to be forfeited if he departed under a regulatory cloud. A $19 million loan was reportedly forgiven. Salomon agreed to pay his legal fees.

How’s that for a golden shove out the door? How’s that for a kick in the teeth for everyone burned by Grubman’s favored client, WorldCom? “I understand the disappointment and anger felt by investors,” Grubman was quoted as saying.

I doubt that, Jack.

What the current economic downturn vividly demonstrates is the corruption not just of business but of the old-fashioned ideals of business. In the fairy tale, rewards for success were supposed to be balanced by the jeopardy of failure. And that’s just the least of it. But even this is no longer true. You can flop and still take home millions, you can leave untold wreckage behind you and still live in silk-stocking luxury provided you have clawed or lucked your way into the interlocking clubhouse of corporate elites who set each other’s salaries and bonuses and who are loyal to each other in the way that street gangs stand by their members.

Grubman protested that he was suffering “great pain” as a result of being singled out for criticism. But of course. There are scores, maybe hundreds, just like him riding the high side of their sailboats in the Caribbean or holding down the prime tee times on the best courses in Maui, living large on the dreams they wrecked.

Trust in our system? Right now, I’m sticking with novelist E.M. Forster, who said that “trust is a luxury that only the wealthy can indulge.” Trust grows only in a soil of fairness.