"But they made a bigger mess!!"

Merrill Lynch & Co will likely incur $5.4 billion of write-downs in the second quarter, mainly from its exposure to monolines, said an analyst at Lehman Brothers, who also saw higher quarterly losses at the world's largest brokerage.

Citigroup Inc shares fell to their lowest level in nearly a decade after a Goldman Sachs & Co analyst said investors should sell the largest U.S. bank's stock short as losses mount from troubled debt.

Barclays Plc may need to raise a further 9 billion pounds in capital, according to analysts at Citigroup, who also said the British bank could take further significant write-downs as credit market conditions continue to deteriorate.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Sanford C. Bernstein said they expect Merrill to post its fourth straight quarterly loss from its exposure to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and hedges.

J.P. Morgan Securities said it expects Merrill Lynch & Co Inc to post a loss in 2008, and substantially cut its second-quarter view for the Wall Street investment bank mainly due to ineffective hedging, slower client activity and likely writedowns from monoline exposures.

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Notice a trend here? Banks are scrambling to make sure everyone knows the 'others' are doing much worse. Their own bank is of course "very capable of weathering the credit crisis, has a substantial capital base, is increasing its presence significantly in the emerging markets, has successfully diversified their portfolios further, bla bla bla." What a bunch of spoiled kids... Just put your head down in disgrace, fix your shop and hope the axes of regulations and lawsuits don't come crashing down on you.