Days,

I caught Daniel's breezy assurance about the worst being behind us, too, and my reaction was to snort derisively. Thanks for the incisive analysis here.

As we are learning, much to our chagrin, leverage works both ways. Wealth can be magically multiplied by fractional reserves, or as in the case of investment banks, even ignoring those limits. But when the base cracks, ah, the credit crunch gets magnified too. Every loan gone sour can 'disappear' ten times as much wealth.