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Social psychologists have known for decades that, if we reduce our sense of our own identity – a process called deindividuation – we are less likely to stick to social norms. For example, in the 1960s Leon Mann studied a nasty phenomenon called "suicide baiting" – when someone threatening to jump from a high building is encouraged to do so by bystanders. Mann found that people were more likely to do this if they were part of a large crowd, if the jumper was above the 7th floor, and if it was dark. These are all factors that allowed the observers to lose their own individuality.

It is now clear that the delusional hope that the severe credit and liquidity crunch that hit US and global financial markets would ease has been shattered by the events of the last few weeks. This credit crunch is getting much worse and its financial and real fallout will be severe. The amount of losses that financial institutions have already recognized - $20 billion – is just the very tip of the iceberg of much larger losses that will end up in the hundreds of billions of dollars. At stake – in subprime alone – is about a trillion of sub-prime related RMBS and hundreds of billions of mortgage related CDOs. But calling this crisis a sub-prime meltdown is ludicrous as by now the contagion has seriously spread to near prime and prime mortgages. And it is spreading to subprime and near prime credit cards and auto loans where deliquencies are rising and will sharply rise further in the year ahead. And it is spreading to every corner of the securitized financial system that is either frozen or on the way to freeze: CDOs issuance is near dead; the LBO market – and the related leveraged loans market – is piling deals that have been postponed, restructured or cancelled; the liquidity squeeze in the interbank market – especially at the one month to three months maturities - is continuing; the losses that banks and investment banks will experience in the next few quarters will erode their Tier 1 capital ratio; the ABCP and related SIV sectors are near dead and unraveling; and since the Super-conduit will flop the only options are those of bringing those SIV assets on balance sheet (with significant capital and liquidity effects) or sell them at a large loss; similar problems and crunches are emerging in the CLO, CMO and CMBS markets; junk bonds spreads are widening and corporate default rates will soon start to rise. Every corner of the securitization world is now under severe stress, including so called highly rated and “safe” (AAA and AA) securities.

This is indeed the message that comes from true market prices – that are not indirectly available via the ABX indices. Those prices tell you not only that the mezzanine and equity tranches of subprime CDOs are now worth close to zero; they also tell you that prices for the AAA and AA tranches – that until recently were hovering near par of 100 – are now down to 79 and 50 respectively. Hundreds of billions of subprime RMBS and senior tranches of CDOs are still being evaluated as if they are worth 100 cents on the dollar. What the ABX is telling you is that they are worth much less; thus the losses from subprime alone are an order of magnitude larger than recognized by most firms.  But most firms are not using such market prices – or their proxies – to value their illiquid assets.

He'd phoned twice the week before, and I'd returned the call to his hotel voice mail on both occasions, but we hadn't connected. So when the 350-pound biker widely known across the deep south as "Grizzly" called me again last Thursday, I was as prepared as could be for another of his semi-annual communications.