"their business models will have to be substantially altered if they are going to survive"

The post title is from a Barclays analyst referencing what Auto and Engineering-focused firms face in the next 18 months. He's likely being too sector-narrow.

Read these two articles from the Daily Telegraph, one focused on Royal Bank of Scotland's "global stock and credit crash alert" to clients, the other on Barclays' dour research and tea leaf reading. Executive summary: Buy a helmet cuz the crap's gonna come down hard.

Hmmm. A lot of these guys sat twiddling thumbs and cashing bonus checks when (calm) voices of reason and prudence were raising questions 3-5 years ago. These would be questions about CDOs and sloppy credit models (cards, cars), about the obvious disregard for the laws of monetary gravity within their industry not to mention the parallels with recent previous fevers like Savings & Loans or Dot-com cultism. Are they now swinging to the opposite side of mania? Could be, but if there's one thing the last 7 years have taught us it's that "hyperbole" has gained the nasty habit of becoming underestimation. (War for oil? Pshaww. Outing our own spies? As if. Politicizing DOJ? Crazy talk. Etc and so on.)

It's useful to remember that the guys who tell us "not to be too hasty" in our judgment, the ones who say "we have to walk before we can run" only do so because they're not interested in the same race as us. For their favored sports though, steroids and jet-pack assists are quite acceptable accessories and look not at all foolish or out of bounds. Too bad we can't speak to a manager. They're all too busy "Leading™."