Satyajit Das on the deleveraging process

All we are describing is how the system sheds excess debt. It's not actually a crisis. It's the natural process of destruction of leverage. A company has debt, can't refinance it, has to sell the asset or go bankrupt, and the process goes on until the debt reaches a manageable level. It's a process that central banks can smooth out by lowering rates, but they cannot actually shorten because they cannot force anyone to lend.

~ Satyajit Das, financial derivatives expert, "Bad times for good companies," MarketWatch.com, July 7, 2008, by Jon Markman