What financial companies could learn (but won’t) from the toy business.

Forget losing hundreds of billions of dollars and nearly wrecking the Western capitalist system; the financial industry has also been pretty bad at public relations in the last few weeks. And they’re paying a price with the public: A poll released Monday found that 81 percent of people living in Connecticut (Connecticut!) favor a significant increase in federal regulation of investment banking.

How could this be done better? Crisis junkies often point to Johnson & Johnson’s reaction to the Tylenol cyanide-tampering scare of 1982 as the gold standard in communicating—the company destroyed all the Tylenol on the shelves, created new packaging, and put its CEO out there to reassure the public. But it may not be the right analogy; in 2008, we have an industrywide crisis—and one of the industry’s own making.

On the other hand, remember those toxic toys? Hasbro, Mattel, and Thomas the Tank Engine maker RC2 faced public outrage in 2007 after it was revealed that their Chinese-based contractors were using lead-based paints. As a free public service to the financial services industry, The Big Money looks at how the holders of toxic assets can learn from the makers of toxic toys.