September 10, 2007 (LPAC) - The creditworthiness of the top investment banks, including Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, is now at or near the level of junk, reports Bloomberg. Despite the rapidly falling interest rates on the bond market (due to investors rushing to the safety of government bonds), nonetheless these bankers can only sell their bonds by offering between 20 and 90 basis points above their cover yield. The worst at this point is Bear Stearns, whose 10 year bonds are trading at a discount even to the national bonds of Colombia (the latter's rating is between BBB and junk), offering 6.448% on a ten year note yielding 5.55%. These are the same companies that are desperate to fund $75 billion of loans for leveraged buyouts but can't find buyers.