NEW YORK (CNN) - There's no doubt that Sandy Weill, the head of Citigroup, is a business genius... he's built an incredible global powerhouse over the past two decades, and is deserving of his place in history. But there's also no doubt that Sandy must consider lawmakers, regulators and the rest of us to be complete fools. And he may have a case.

To rid Citigroup of its conflict of interest problems between investment banking and stock research, Weill today put research and brokerage in one subsidiary and investment banking in another part of his company. He also hired Sallie Krawcheck of Sanford Bernstein to run the brokerage, which will now be called Smith Barney.

The news media to this point has been cloying... other Wall Street firms have been silent... and the regulators have not reacted.

The Citigroup announcement comes as Wall Street firms were today to have given their responses to a proposal to fund a research consortium... independent research to match up against Wall Street's sell-side research. Sort of a socialized version of investment research. Meanwhile, Citigroup is under investigation by securities regulators for its conflicts of interest and financing of Enron and WorldCom. And they're also looking into Weill's direct involvement in the rating of AT&T.

Today's move by Citigroup will likely be heralded... but it simply means more of the same. In Wall Street firms, research is just another word for sales... and it's time for the regulators to do far more than apply cosmetics to the face of Wall Street greed.

It's time for real reform... and it's time for regulators to act in the interest of the public investor. Independent research would be a very good start. We know how dumb Wall Street believes us to be... we'll soon see how dumb we really are.