Auction rate markdown

Someone just told you that the CASH in your brokerage account is worth 80 cents on the dollar. How can this be anything but deflationary? The only problem is again one of numbers. The article mentions that Moody's thinks this is a $300 billion market in total, implying that this haircut will add another $60 billion to the bad debts out there. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.