Lo, a brighter crunch picture awaits! Whatever that is. We know it; we feel it…it’s coming. We are not carrying on. You clearly don’t have our keen grasp of the complex, interlocking financial mechanics at work here. When UBS sells $15 billion of mortgage assets to BlackRock and announces job cuts of 5,500 by mid-2009 (as detailed in the following piece) that’s merely the sweet remedying of a gangrenous one-off. This is the rise of the fall. Legends of the rise. It is almost upon us. The definitive (possible) near-ending of the end. You heard it here first. But first, a word from one of our sponsors.

UBS AG said Tuesday it would sell $15 billion in mortgage assets to BlackRock Inc. and slash 5,500 jobs by the middle of next year, moves meant to restructure the Swiss giant's troubled investment bank.

The Zurich-based bank will sell $15 billion in Alt-A and subprime assets to Blackrock, which will manage the holdings in a fund for distressed securities. Alt-A assets are considered slightly less risky than subprime loans.

The Zurich bank said it will ax 2,600 investment banking jobs, mainly in London and New York, after write-downs on dud mortgage securities totaling more than $37 billion. The remainder of the jobs will be cut through natural attrition across the bank's units, UBS said.

UBS, which is whittling down its mortgage holdings, said it will continue efforts to offload the sizable book of distressed assets it still holds after the Blackrock deal to stem further damage from write-downs.

"We clearly see investors coming to the market, which we view in itself as some strong support for current price and valuation levels," UBS Chief Executive Marcel Rohner told a conference call.

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