So it’s all peachy, then. Despite the recent meltdown of Bear Stearns, the “near-catastrophe” that was avoided, and the scrabblings in the Federal Reserve, we can just relax and breathe a collective sigh of relief. According to one of the analysts at Lehman Brothers, the worst of the credit crisis is over:

“Events in the past couple of days indicate that global equity markets have moved on from discounting the recessionary impact of lower earnings to considering the implications of a systemic reduction in the availability of credit to otherwise profitable businesses and creditworthy households.”

Umm, I beg your pardon?

“We think this likely represents the culmination of the current crisis in capital markets.”

Oh, jolly good. …But I thought Lehman Brothers was flagged as one of the next most likely US banks to crumble after Bear Stearns?

He must be drinking from the same half-full glass of rosé as our dear Chancellor, Alistair Darling, who said only a few days ago:

“We enter this period of uncertainty, better placed than any other major economy. Our fiscal policy, like our monetary policy is designed to support stability.”

I find it interesting that a man in his position can say something like that with a straight face, when there is approximately £100 Billion of taxpayers money at stake to shore up Northern Rock. Others, too seem to think that worse is to come - both from the effects of the credit crunch in the US, and from our own domestic issues.

We have forgotten the simple truth that ultimately you can only spend what you earn.

Yet despite these dire headlines, none of this ever seems to have a direct or tangible effect on any of us. Our worlds still go on. The sky doesn’t fall on our heads. Our debts are still there. And for the moment, let’s hope our pensions, too.

This post appears in the Carnival of Everything Finance No. 15