Last year, when Citi and Merrill Lynch axed their CEO's when they started posting losses as the subprime debacle unfolded, Daniel Gross wrote an article suggesting that the nondescript replacements were just what these Big Boyz needed to help that settle down and get their houses in order. I replied that the real function of these nonentities might better be described as undertakers.

Time and time again, pundits, economists, Wall Street types and as well as the Bernankes and the Paulsens have reassured us that -- now -- the worst is behind us. But it seems clear that the worst is far from behind us. Yet again, the Big Boyz post big losses and their desperation increases.

This is no longer a credit crunch. It is a solvency crisis. Subprime has spread to Alt-A and commercial loans and home equity loans and student loans and auto loans and credit cards. Every ratcheting up of job losses, which means loss of income, together with every ratcheting up of food and energy costs, which means constricted spending, means more loans fall behind, go delinquent and become just another hollow asset on the Big Boyz balance sheets.

So, let's play the Moneybox Big Bank Deathwatch Game.

Here's some nominees for those who may not make it to January 1 --

• Citibank
• Merrill Lynch
• Lehman Brothers
• Wachovia
• ChaseJPMorgan
• Sun Trust
• WAMU
• Bank of America

Have I missed any rotting corpses? Please add them to the list, then rank them in order of most likely to croak first.

the mainstay of the fixed loan; the old #1 Lender of the land (after Wells Fargo got caught stealing from everybody and got whacked for it) was passed up by Countrywide and those pesky ARMs. Becoming #2 made them try harder and they did so by turning to negam products and retail outlets. My dad has a negam loan from WaMu... one he received at a time when i couldn't see him qualifying for a fixed loan. WaMu is paying dearly for those loans, just as IndyMac did. WaMu has already shut down their wholesale operations in Illinois. Cook County (Chicago is only part of Cook County) has more houses than any county in the world. You don't shut down wholesale operations in Illinois unless business as usual is killing you. They've been on the verge of dying but keep pulling strings to stay afloat. You can't live forever on life support, you have to be able to compete in the open market. Everyone else on your list is suffering massive losses but is also still doing business in the main. WaMu can not recede back into the west coast market and survive, the west coast market is probably the worst housing market in the nation. I say WaMu goes down next and it could indeed come before the year is up. One of the big boys will buy them out, just like BofA bought out Countrywide.

would be my uneducated guess, but you wouldn't know it from their recent stock price action. Wachovia just annouced a $9 billion quarterly loss, and its stock, after first dropping 10%, later rose by about 20% on the day of the announcement! I think Merrill's in some difficulty, too, and maybe Morgan Stanley (one you didn't mention). Some think that Bear Stearns was allowed to be swallowed up by JPM because Bear hadn't participated in the LTCM bailout 10 years ago.

The biggest loser of all: poor American renters (see my BOTF post).

Wachovia is the obvious first target for me. Followed closely by Lehman, then WaMu. The rest are all running in a tie.

Citi won't go anywhere, they're too big, have too many global businesses they can sell.

Look for mostly overseas companies to be buying these in order to make inroads in the US retail banking sector on the cheap. HSBC will probably be shopping around, as the now largest bank in the world (by market cap, thanks to Citi's free-falling share price).

Dick Cheney, if there were any justice in the world.

OK, more seriously: I agree with Days that WAMU is in deep doo-doo. They will probably be first to go. Wachovia isn't exactly the picture of health, either. They could be second. Rumors continue to swirl around Lehman Brothers. Those are the three that I would single out as being the most likely candidates for croaking.

It is really the American economy that is croaking.

But that kind of croaking doesn't happen overnight. More like a long, lingering illness that leaves the patient weaker and weaker.

Terminal disease is not a pretty thing.