Given the recent revelations of corporate misconduct and fraud, I find myself asking: Can I really trust the financial information that corporate executives put out?

Can I trust that the auditors who check those statements have done their job right?

In his Wall Street speech on corporate responsibility, President Bush used the word “trust” seven times.

“High-profile acts of deception have shaken people’s trust,” Bush said, referring to the daily doses of revelations about various corporate leaders or their minions overstating profits, inflating revenues, hiding losses or all of the above.

Bush offered a plan to restore our trust in the stock market. Here’s what he proposes:

CEOs’ trustworthiness

Part of his 10-point accountability plan would require CEOs to personally vouch for their firms’ financial statements. Pardon me for asking a simple question, but what exactly are they doing now? Oh, right. According to Bush, they only provide “nominal certification” that their company’s financial statements are true and not misleading. In the future he wants CEOs to personally attest that the financial statements and company disclosures are accurate and fairly disclose information investors can use to make an informed investment decision.

Analysts’ honesty

“To encourage stock ownership, we must make sure that analysts give honest advice,” Bush said. “Stock analysts should be trusted advisers, not salesmen with a hidden agenda.” Believe that and I can find you some Enron shareholders who would like to sell you their stock. In this investment game, follow the money and you will find the stakeholder’s allegiance. “Many analysts are not paid to provide advice but to tout stocks and generate transactions,” says professor Matthew Spiegel from the Yale School of Management. Individual investors need to understand that the reports generated by analysts are designed for large institutional investors, he said.

Copycat system

One of the new rules Bush proposed would require auditors to compare the quality of a company’s financial controls with the best practices of the industry and communicate its findings to the board of directors’ audit committee. Yippie, more self-monitoring. This sounds a lot like he’s endorsing a copycat system.

And if that is the case, what will prevent auditors from approving shaky accounting practices because other corporations are doing the same thing?

“Investors should be careful not to have overly high expectations about the precision of financial statements because it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure economic values and economic performance precisely,” said Krishna R. Kumar, a professor of accountancy at the George Washington University. “This is not to suggest that financial statements are not useful. There is a lot of useful information in them.

But, like the grains of sand on the beach, financial performance and value can be difficult to measure precisely.”

Bush called for a “new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community; an ethic that will increase investor confidence, will make employees proud of their companies, and again, regain the trust of the American people.”

Last time I checked, the old ethic that requires people to act in a moral and just way didn’t need any updating.

Bush was right when he said “all investment is an act of faith, and faith is earned by integrity.” He was wrong and absurd when he said “there’s no capitalism without conscience; there is no wealth without character.”