Quote Originally Posted by Panda
UK is in worse shape than the USA re its import/export imbalance and debt.
I think so, the UK is not in the same flexible position as the US is, and yet doesn't have the "cushion" of socialism to stop the financial damage from spreading

The US will probably recover from that mess with a big hangover early 2010, so 2009 should be pretty miserable for the rest of the world in terms of growth. The good news is deflation, and cheap "assets" and cheap "currencies" might relaunch the engine.

For me the biggest disaster isn't the subprime, it's all "virtual" panic and it was caused by FASB forcing financial institutions to mark to market in 2006, doing the same mistake as it was in early 80s during the S&L mess, opening the way for a credit crunch. History repeating itself again.

No, the biggest disaster for WS is the Madoff scandal, this is going to have some nasty effects for savings and investment portfolios in a massive way.