As investors and analysts struggle to keep up with the latest twists and turns of the credit crisis, the plight of the world’s biggest banks has generated a rich vein of gallows humour.

Bear Necessities

Where are the Bear necessities?
No longer trading equities,
Got buried in a landslide of subprime.
I mean the Bear necessities -
Those benchmark Gilts and Treasuries
Forgotten in a sea of banking grime.

Whatever, I wonder,
Became of my home?
My mortgage was squandered
With millions of loans.
And now there’s no liquidity
Banks have been brought down to their knees.
And when they get up,
It may come to pass
That the SEC and the FSA will regulate their ass.
The Bear necessities of trade will come to them.

FT.com rounds up the best (and the worst) offerings from every corner of the world’s strained banking system to keep you laughing (and groaning) under the darkening financial skies.