Bank stocks have been going down not entirely unlike Samsung’s chairman (not really a newsflash, but definitely bad news). Now they are so lowly rated as to be underrated, which means that everyone and their mother wants to buy a bank grubstake, from private-equity firms, to sovereign-wealth funds to, well, other banks. In the long haul, they think banks will yield big money (good news). So, we are relieved to see that while the system is broken, it appears to be self-healing. That said, who gets the capital and who doesn’t is increasingly looking like a game of musical chairs, as the National Citys of the world vie against companies like Linens ‘n Things for finite emergency cash. Who will get bailed out – and who won’t – when the music stops?

The news is harrowing and unrelenting. Huge write-downs, hitting everyone from UBS to National City to tiny Colonial BancGroup. Before it's over, the IMF predicts a mind-boggling $945 billion of credit-related losses.

But what if you looked at the crisis in a different way. That the mind-boggling part isn't so much the losses, but what's come after: That there has been enough capital to save dozens of banks and brokers from the brink of disaster.

ETrade Financial, Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup. Each has found a way to avoid calamity. However fragile, the system has remained self-repairing, feeding capital where it is needed.

Shareholders have struggled immensely in the process, few as much as National City's. Its shares have lost 84% of their value over the last year on the New York Stock Exchange, after sinking 28% on Monday's announcement. The new plan will dilute the book value of the bank by more than half. The quarterly dividend is now a symbolically insulting one cent a share.

That's largely irrelevant to what National City was facing. No one dared speak out over the past few weeks, for fear of stoking panic. But people involved in the auction described the situation as very, very serious.

Another potential bidder was less diplomatic, saying that absent rescue capital, National City was "going doughnuts" -- a term used when a stock drops to zero.

"By and large, the banks came in well-capitalized," says DePaul University Professor Elijah Brewer III. The banks have "been able to go out and raise capital in a variety of ways that you should be pretty excited about."

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