Strong words from senior bankers about the collapse of credit markets around the world. Take them seriously, and literally. These folks do not fool around, this is not Cramer and Kudlow.

“The big risk in the coming weeks and months is that you get forced selling of credit with institutions, both from the hedge fund side and the bank side,” said Bob Janjuah, chief credit strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “The global economy is a debt-fueled confidence based scheme. All assets are and will be impacted.”

“This is not going to be a short affair,” said V. Anantha-Nageswaran, head of research for Asia at Bank Julius Baer (Singapore) Ltd., part of Switzerland’s biggest independent money manager. “By the time it ends, in three to four years, people will not want to hear of financial markets or real estate.”

Marc Faber chimes in: “The LBO bubble has dispersed. The peak of the LBO boom has been reached. It was long overdue that the market would go down.”