The end of the beginning

For the starry-eyed optimists among you :

"The failure of Citigroup, which looks increasingly likely to happen in the near future, would mark the end of the beginning of the financial crisis. Until now, the prevailing view has been that the crisis and recession will pass in a year or so, after which things will go back, more or less, to the way they were, with a few less financial institutions, and a bit more regulation. A Citigroup failure would put paid to that idea."

Read : http://crookedtimber.org/2008/11/21/end-of-the-beginning/.

I ain't saying it's gonna happen. I ain't saying it won't.

If it happens, I don't know what's going to happen afterwards ... but it will be pretty ugly !

Bankers were supposed to be facilitators of economic activity. As it turns out, they may well have been the greedy gravediggers.