James Chanos, perhaps the nation’s most renowned short seller of stocks, isn’t shorting financials much these days, thanks to major efforts by governments around the world to revive their banking systems.

“We’re still short financials, but this is the least short we’ve been for four years,” Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates, told Bloomberg TV.

“Financial stocks are down quite a bit already,” he says.

“And clearly with these kinds of rescue packages, our view of the risk-reward equation is not great from the short side and probably is good selectively for the long side.”

Chanos says he is impressed with the Treasury’s plan to provide assistance to the financial sector, including taking equity stakes in several major banks.

“The program is very broad and very far ranging. That’s the good news,” he says.

“The bad news is that we’re still waiting on some details. The jury is out. How will they set security prices, and how will they get liquidity into the institutions without costing taxpayers money?”

Chanos figures that money markets will thaw. “The question then becomes what do we go back to? This puts out the fire. But what’s left of our financial foundation? My concern is that a lot of it was built with rotten timber.”

Richard Bove, a bank analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann, doesn’t see banks returning to normal anytime soon, although he does favor commercial bank stocks.

“It is sad to note that it will take years to resolve the problems that have surfaced in the past months," he wrote in a note to investors last week.