I agree with this, written from a US perspective:

Each week brings a terrifying lurch, like a house on the edge of some cliff being pounded into slush by a Pacific storm. On the Doppler radar, we can see one financial tempest after another lined up out there. Next to burst: the credit card overhang, of some $2.8 trillion in consumers' plastic debt, much of which will have to be written off. The week after? Meanwhile, scores of cities and towns and even states are on the edge of bankruptcy.

Not only has the fat lady not sung yet, we might only be in the overture right now.

As the same article points out, if General Motors fails (and it is entirely possible) then up to 2.5 million Americans will lose their jobs - that's 1% of the population as a whole.

This is why cutting taxes is not the solution to the problem. Creating new jobs for a new economy is the solution we need.

But even so, let's have no illusions: this may be uglier than we have ever anticipated.