Lehman Bank Failure

This is an article from the BBC about the possible collapse of Lehman bank, which has suffered it's worst quarterly return in history and is trying desperately to shake things up to inspire confidence with what appears to be little success. What I find interesting is how much this crisis, like so many other financial problems of recent past, seems to be based entirely on perception and confidence instead of actual results or business practices at least in the short run. Stories of incredible corruption or questionable ethics appear time and time again and people ask how this keeps happening, and the answer seems to be that if things look good, they are for the most part taken at face value. Isn't there some way to regulate these massive companies that have an undeniable effect on public welfare and confidence when they go up in smoke? Or are they too ingrained in the political system itself to achieve any sort of unbiased third party observation?