Aug. 24, 2007 (LPAC)--Adding to the bankers' Bull Shit Index today comes news from London's Guardian. Apparently, there's no problem in the credit markets. After Rio Tinto raised $40 billion to buy Canada's Alcan, Rio Tinto's Tom Albanese said, "What we're seeing on the credit market is an appropriate repricing of risk," he said. As a consequence, he said, "there was a flight to quality among investors."

But even the Guardian had to add, "But as market turmoil increased, concerns over the deal rose. Some said that although the financing had already been underwritten, there was still a possibility that the banks would not be able to raise the money if market conditions worsened."

The Neue Zuercher Zeitung today has a reminder that from the beginning of September on, $329 billion, globally, worth of private equity loans for planned takeovers are in question. Note that more than half of that sum concerns five big banks alone: JP Morgan, $64.65 billion; Deutsche Bank, $32.11 billion; Citigroup, $25.44 billion; Bank of America, $24.25 billion; and Goldman Sachs, $19.57 billion. And, the following six banks are in the category of having $11.5-18 billion potentially on the ropes: Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland, Morgan Stanley, Merril Lynch, Barclays Capital.