Like a scurry of squirrels, companies are stashing a greater percentage of assets in cash than at any time in the past 40 years. They're clearly hoarding for an unclear winter that could turn into a nuclear winter when the commercial real-estate market crashes and the Federal Reserve starts to kick out some of the props under this bubblicious market.

Just remember that the next time you hear the banks, which are saving, moaning that consumers need to step up their spending to save the economy.

So this week's Fed confab takes on special meaning. When will Ben Bernanke and crew start to unwind their frantic pumping of money into the economy and start pulling back?

Bloomberg's Craig Torres lays it out well this morning, saying there could be big problems if Bernanke "is counting on private investors to fill the void left by the Fed when its purchases [of mortgage-backed securities] ends."

Torres points out that the Fed could come under increasing pressure to bail out other sectors. Just watch the bankers' tears flow again when the commercial real-estate crash finally happens.

Speculating on Bernanke, Torres writes:

Michael Steinberg notes out this morning on Seeking Alpha that the big banks are sloshing with liquidity, adding that this is not exactly in line with the idea of an economic recovery.

We already knew that the wealth that vanished from American households didn't disappear. It just got transferred into other pockets, as James Lieber pointed out last week. And there it sits, squirreled away by the banks and private equity folks.

See the WSJ's nice feature piece this morning about the Fed's on-the-ground operatives. Like Brian Sack, who runs the Fed's trading operations and has to figure out how to extract at least some of the $1 trillion the Fed pumped in. If and when Bernanke tells him to. If and when Bernanke thinks that companies will start dipping into their own stashes of cash.

At least we know that Ford won't be asking for a bailout.