There's so much bad news that it's worth noting a Wall Street investment ploy that has worked well during the past decade: the Street's purchase of politicians.

A new report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," states the obvious about how the Street staved off regulation by buying political power with campaign contributions and lobbying.

But in addition to the bonus of including yet another flogging of the nation's leaders for getting rid of the Glass-Steagall Act, this report, a joint effort of the California-based Consumer Education Foundation and D.C.-based Essential Information, provides a bundle of interesting details, starting with this:

Considering the billions that Wall Streeters have extracted — even before the bailouts — their investments in pols were minimal compared with the returns.

Some other morsels:

• The purchase of political power has been bipartisan — perhaps not the kind of unity Barack Obama has talked about, but bipartisan nonetheless: "Primarily reflecting the balance of power over the decade, about 55 percent went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats. Democrats took just more than half of the financial sector's 2008 election cycle contributions."

• "In 2007, the financial sector employed a staggering 2,996 separate lobbyists to influence federal policy making, more than five for each Member of Congress. This figure only counts officially registered lobbyists. That means it does not count those who offered 'strategic advice' or helped mount policy-related PR campaigns for financial sector companies. The figure counts those lobbying at the federal level; it does not take into account lobbyists at state houses across the country."

• The revolving door between government and Wall Street moves at a pace almost as rapid as the spinning door between the Department of Defense and defense contractors: A total of 142 financial-industry lobbyists (not counting those from the insurance or real-estate industries) had been either top officials in the Executive Branch, members of Congress, or Congressional staff.

And this report, unlike most others, gets down and dirty with the actual names.

Read the full report or excerpts.