The Christmas holiday season is turning out to be much like high summer this year, at least for the credit-market-dependent.

Everyone was supposed to be out of the door by now, have flattened positions, closed the book, with only a few sad accountants and tax lawyers left to draw a line under 2007. Not to be. Every week, it seems, there has to be a massive, definitive workout plan for the credit market freeze-up, each of which takes no more than a day or two to be considered, and then tossed aside by Mr Market.