As if we needed more reminders of the overall ill health of the nation’s largest banks, the Federal Reserve has again ordered them to prepare for another labored jog on Uncle Sam’s tortuous stress-testing treadmill.

And while we’re sure the Fed has nothing but good intentions, we can’t help but wonder if the latest tests themselves might do the patient more harm than good.

When the first round of tests was ordered early last year, there was a clear purpose behind them. The idea was to subject the 19 largest banks in the country to a variety of tests designed to probe their ability to withstand a prolonged economic slump. The results of the tests would be used to determine how best to deploy what was then a huge pile of federal cash intended to help boost capital cushions. At the time, the Obama administration demanded the results of those first stress tests be made public.

But if the motives of the first round of tests were clear and relatively politically unambiguous, these latest tests seem much less so.

For starters, we’re not entirely sure why the banks are being tested. Yes, ostensibly a big reason for the tests is to analyze their ability to withstand potentially huge capital hits if/when they’re ordered to buy back faulty securitized mortgages.

But that begs the question – if these tests do indeed lead to the discovery of still more potential trouble at our big banks, what can the Fed even do about it? There is not a second $750 billion, taxpayer-funded TARP pool coming along any time soon. Indications seem to point to the Fed being “out of bullets” anyway, preferring to spend its cash reserves on Treasury purchases rather than more blind giveaways to troubled borrowers.

Again, what does discovering a problem do if there’s no ready solution at hand? If a possible worst-case scenario does come to pass, and banks are legally ordered to buy back hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bad mortgage securities, it’s not like the Fed can overturn a legally binding court decision. So discovering any potential problems puts the Fed in the unique position of being able to see a crash coming, but being unable to steer us out of the way.

Compounding problems is the added wrinkle of transparency, or lack thereof. The first tests were made very public.

But the results of these latest tests will not be made public. And rather than help keep public angst out of the equation, we can easily imagine a scenario in which one or more of these 19 institutions scores poorly on the test and is quietly ordered to raise more capital. But when institutions the size of Citigroup or Bank of America go on the hunt for more capital, it hardly goes un-noticed.

So we can’t help but feel like ordering more under-the-radar bank tests does more to treat the symptoms than it does to treat the disease. Low capital levels and an increased threat of damning litigation were largely borne out of a bigger lack of consumer confidence in banks and the economy as a whole.

Shaken by years of terrible economic news and dramatic job losses, we don’t think the unavoidable furtive speculation sure to follow another round of tests will do anything to combat low consumer confidence.

In the end, it seems like the Fed and other regulators are performing these tests more out of some manufactured political obligation than any real motive to help in any way. In other words, what better way to cover your keister than by being able to say “Well, we told you so” in the event something terrible does happen?

We think the effort is better spent actually strengthening our banking core through more effective policies, not further illustrating its weaknesses.