No one is really sure what impact the subprime lending crisis will have on the rest of the economy. Jean-Philippe Cotis, head economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, noted yesterday that it's still too early to tell how the world's economies will be affected. The good news, he said, is that, "it has happened at a point in time when world economic momentum was still strong."

But Cotis added that, "risks have become more ominous" because overall financial market conditions are likely to remain tighter for the long haul.

The worries are that this crisis will spill over into other areas of the economy, like IT.

How could this happen? Well, many banks are still unsure of how much money they've lost in the debacle, and they sure as heck don't know how their customers are affected. And economists are still unsure about whether this only affects loans to people who can't afford their mortgages, or if it will lead to lower home prices, less new home construction, fewer people borrowing against their mortgages to afford a new PC, etc.

No wonder everyone is getting a case of the willies. Deb Perelman writes today in eWEEK that the confidence of IT workers is slipping, in part because of these worries.

But are these worries justified? Probably not.

People in the financial industry have been more sanguine in private than what they've said for public consumption. Take financial services giant CIT, which has over $70 billion in managed assets. The company has announced that, as a result of the crisis, it plans to get out of the housing market, which represents 10 percent of its portfolio. That's for the benefit of Wall Street.

But one of its senior executives told me over dinner this week that this also means there will be more money available, not less, for lending in other areas, including IT.

Cotis himself expressed confidence that "markets will learn from recent mistakes."

And to ward off further crises, he suggested more encompassing supervision of U.S. subprime mortgage markets "with greater attention to non-bank originators which have often evaded effective scrutiny"; a more active fight against predatory lending, including better disclosure and education; and more transparency in credit markets.

In the meantime, here's hoping people don't lose their heads over what should just be an isolated problem.