His blunt, humorous words not only graphically describe the world's tumultuous economic scene caused by a “once-in-a-century” financial tsunami, but also applies to the political landscape in many parts of the world, including Taiwan. Just watch how many of the island's luminaries have been running in the buff during the “trial-of-the-century” of former president Chen Shui-bian for corruption since the change of power last May.

The center stage, of course, is occupied by the United States where the tsunami began on Wall Street six months ago and quickly engulfed Main Street and the rest of the world. We have seen a lot of naked swimmers, former financial barons and political movers and shakers who once ruled the financial universe.

Bernie Madoff, a former chairman of NASDAQ, is now behind bars for running the world's largest and longest ponzi scheme involving US$60 billion dollars.

He has pleaded guilty to all of the 11 charges against him and may face up to 130 years in jail. He told the judge that he did it all by himself, without the knowledge of his wife or children.

In contrast to Madoff's one-man heist, Wall Street has emerged as a naked symbiotic body of unscrupulous officials and greedy traders who believed in “greed is good,” as pronounced by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, Michael Douglas Oscar-winning movie.

Nowadays, however, the real Wall Street makes the movie version a child's play to a certain degree.

Have you heard the name John Thain? He would have been treasury secretary if Senator John McCain had won the election last November.

As the CEO of Merril Lynch, the 53-year-old financial wizard (for loss-making) was the highest paid CEO in the S&P top 500 companies. But just before his bankrupting firm was acquired by Bank of America last fall, he dished out US$3.6 billion to Merrill Lynch executives as bonuses. He made international headlines last January for spending US$1.2 million to renovate his office at BofA, which later forced him to resign after discovering Merrill Lynch's losses were much higher than first estimated.

We are all familiar with the sound bite that “Citi Never Sleeps.” It was busy burning the taxpayers' money.

It's CEO, Vikram Pandit, better known as “Pandit the Bandit,” is busy spending US$10 million to renovate his Park Avenue office after getting US$45 billion of government funds last fall in order to keep the virtually bankrupt bank alive.

The Citigroup, which was the world's largest bank a decade ago, lost another US$28 billion in the first quarter of this year. How could the extravagance be justified?

Naked dippers abound, and none was more outrageous than last week's furor over the AIG's US$165 million bonuses for the company's executives at its Financial Products Unit, the very branch whose toxic products brought the company down and dragged the world economy to sink with it.

America's taxpayers have paid AIG — ridiculed by many as Arrogance, Incompetence and Greed — US$170 billion to bail it out, the lion's share of the US$800 billion Troubled Asset Relief Package (TARP) fund.

But AIG apparently used most of the money to pay its gambling partners in U.S. and Europe, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. BofA, UBS and Deutsche Bank. Ed Liddy, the dollar-a-year CEO appointed by government, stirred a hornet nest last week by funneling a whopping US$165 million to top executives as “retention pay” — a euphemism for bonuses.

The whole country was fired up in rage, as Liddy was grilled and humiliated in Congress for his failure to block the payment. President Obama was angry, at least in appearance, vowing to let his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, to “pursue every single legal avenue” to block the bonuses.

The enraged House of Representatives responded by approving a 90 per cent tax rate on bonuses which would virtually wipe out the bonuses entirely, taking into consideration that there are both state and local taxes on bonuses.

Obama's economic team suffered a heavy blow to its prestige and credibility.

His top economic advisers, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner from the Wall Street club, have been roundly criticized for their close ties to the bailed-out banks.

Also Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd was hit by a ricochet, for a last-minute change in AIG's bail-out contract allowing the company to pay bonuses to top executives.

The financial tsunami has exposed the flip side of American capitalism, not a bad thing if the country can start a recovery and revival from where it has stumbled.

But it must act quickly and decisively, and this tests President Obama's leadership. America did it before, in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled the nation from Great Depression.

There is no reason why the country cannot do it again under Obama, who galvanized Americans last year during the presidential campaign with the resounding slogan “Yes, We Can!”