Credit Crunch: What Happens Next?

It's good to see value judgements about thrift and productivity sprinkled among the jargon in this sober WSJ analysis of the credit crunch: "The events of this week are a logical progression in the elimination of credit excesses, marking neither Armageddon nor the beginning of renewal. Unfortunately, this is just another stage in the lengthy adaptation of the market system to a less-than brave new world.... But all is not gloom. There will be an end, as there is to all things. When we emerge from this it will be to a world in which thrift has replaced leverage and scarce capital is invested more productively."