The Credit Crunch is Dead! Long Live the Credit Crunch!

''Around the ides of March, we had the mind-focusing spectacle of the possible implosion of Bear Stearns, which was feared to take down a lot of the financial system. But Fed and JP Morgan to the rescue, Lehman presents earnings that depend entirely on accounting rather than business activity, namely, widening credit spreads that made its own outstanding debt worth less, and everything is hunky dory.''