Ironic article by Tim Price, at The price of everything. – Ilene
Stuck in the Middle“Well I don’t know why I came here tonight
I got a feeling that something ain’t right
I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down those stairs
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am..”
– ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ by Stealer’s Wheel; also the soundtrack to the notorious ear-removal sequence in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’.
Excerpt: "There has never been any shortage of clowns and jokers in the investment markets, but it sometimes takes a bear market to flush a few out. In contradiction to the widespread fear that hedge funds would precipitate the Next Big Crash, we now know that it was actually the banks that laid its (wobbly) foundations. Now, with sentiment fragile and fund managers widely sheltering in cash, the journalists are having a go at pushing at the pedestal. “RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert,” warned Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph, inviting “one of the worst bear markets over the last century”. The RBS research note in question was more subtly entitled “Crude-flation Concerns Spike”; while crude-flation is undoubtedly an uglier word even than stagflation, it is not clear who Spike is, nor why he should be concerned. It is certainly difficult to know quite how worked up (if at all) to get about the RBS note in question. Some of us evidently felt that the markets had already “crashed” in the conventional sense of the word, given the falls in credit markets and stocks – particularly banking stocks like, say, those of RBS (-60%) – since the summer of 2007. 
“The very nasty period is soon to be upon us – be prepared,” warned RBS on 11th June (2008). The market environment is nasty already, and has been for quite some time, as anybody with any form of investments will surely testify. Perhaps future research will report the sad passing of Queen Victoria or the sinking of the SS Titanic. But it is always nice to hear that the banks who brought us the credit crunch in the first place are bang up with events. Just after they’ve had their latest emergency rights issue."
