Banks: Too Clever by Half

A lot of this post flies above my head, but what I think he's telling us is that the banks are on a 'heads-I-win-tails-you-lose' deal. If there are large scale collapses of other enterprises they have insurance deals called synthetic collateralised debt obligations (synthetic CDOs) that basically mean they get sheds loads of money and the rest of the economy suffers. So no more 'credit crunch', just a unthinkably big transfer of wealth to the financial sector from the rest of the global economy.

Or not, as the case may be. The author is hedging his bets between financial Armageddon and the possibility that,
"... the credit crunch will come to sudden and complete end, like the passing of a tornado that has left devastation in its wake, along with an eerie silence."

Which to my untutored brain sounds suspiciously like the aftermath of financial Armaggedon. Just with a different bit of the economy at the eye of the storm.

Stumbling, on the other hand, has gone all po-mo on us, and lets on as if the recession doesn't exist, just because he can't get the computer game he wants. (Here's a clue as to why his tongue might be firmly in his cheek: he lives in Britain. Everyone knows that, each Xmas, there is one must-have toy you can't get, irrespective of the state of the British economy. It's a tradition for chrissakes...)