Susuto

Just today, the cost of protecting corporate bonds from default surged to records around the world as the prospect of U.S. automakers filing for bankruptcy protection fueled concern of even MORE! bank losses and a deeper recession: www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/11/credit-defaults-swaps-peg-corporate.html.

Finally, also today, global markets smashed through their widely believed support levels and reached new lows breaking historic loss records along the way (see: /www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/record-breaking-data/):

“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” said Raymond Tang, who oversees $5.8 billion as chief investment officer at CIMB-Principal Asset Management Bhd., a unit of Malaysia’s second-biggest bank. The economic slump is “the worst I’ve seen on a global scale, with no region to help each other,” he said.

World governments are clearly in high gear trying to stop a major global wide depression. The bad news is — and they know it now — their best efforts are hardly making a dent, they’ve run out of monetary tools and good ideas, and now — they’re panicking.

God help us.