October 22, 2007 (LPAC)--Today, some media (FAZ, Financial Times, newsletters) reported from Washington, DC this weekend, that Germany's finance minister Peer Steinbrueck told journalists there that he is still worried about the possibility that a big investment bank or fund could run into deep trouble and begin emergency fire sales of assets, sending shock waves around the globe.

This Steinbrueck glimpse of reality that shone through the otherwise massive attempt of the monetarist institutions to pretend that there is no problem (and if at all, that they have a solution for it), probably has to do with Steinbrueck's stop in New York, on his way to the IMF event, meeting with either the CEO's or their deputies of Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and other leading banks. Did they brief him about the danger?

But as Steinbrueck and his other colleagues kept discussing at the IMF, a new round of fire-sales already began: IKB's Rhinebridge conduit is being forcibly auctioned off by the authorities in Dublin; the British Cheyne Capital fund is shutting down its conduits, as is being done also by Tango Finance, a joint conduit of Citigroup and Rabobank. Moreover, hints that Commerzbank and Hypovereinsbank are in deeper trouble over their conduits, sent the stocks of both banks down in Frankfurt by 4.7 and 2.7 percent, respectively, within minutes after trading began there.

What banks need, is not yet another interview given by Steinbrueck or Greenspan, but rather firewall legislation protecting the banks from the London pyromaniacs.