Lehman Brothers and Wall Street cheerleaders can say whatever they like but we are nowhere near the end of this. Anyone who says they know the full extent of the losses is either a liar or a fool. The range continues to grow but it's only a range and could be considerably worse.
Nine months after the crisis in the American mortgage market began to tear through the financial world, the cost to banks, in terms of their own sinking investments, is approaching $300 billion. To shore up their weakened finances, one bank after another is racing to raise capital — a total of $160 billion so far.
The pain is far from over. Even the most optimistic forecasters say banks will suffer billions of dollars in additional write-downs on mortgage investments and other debt in the months ahead. The final figure for the banks write-downs could eventually exceed $750 billion — twice some early estimates — if the economy sinks into a prolonged recession, some analysts say.
