Each week, the fabric of our financial system further unravels to reveal vulnerable pockets of our economy. But somehow, venture capital -- one of the most powerful growth engines of the economy and the lifeblood of high-technology advances, as the National Venture Capital Association describes it -- has managed to avoid being associated with these words.

Isn't this, after all, the asset class that helped hype shoddy investments eight years ago through greed, deception and irrational exuberance, only to watch a misled public suffer while the economy spun into a lengthy recession?