World Financial Crisis - Kent Ninomiya

Kent Ninomiya - Asian financial markets are making it clear that they fear the economic crisis in the United States will spread world wide. Today Japan's Nikkei 225 index dropped 5.1 percent after falling 3.9 percent Monday. They stopped trading in India when the Sensex index free fell 9.75 percent in the first few minutes. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shrank 8 percent after diving 5.5 percent the day before. The same is happening in the rest of the world. In Europe Monday, Britain's FTSE-100 fell 5.5 percent and France's CAC-40 Index slid 6.8 percent. Germany's blue-chip DAX 30 plunged 7.2 percent. Likewise, benchmark indices in China, South Korea and Singapore each fell at least 4 percent. Australia's benchmark index slid 7.1 percent and Indonesia's market was down 9 percent. The pain is expected to come full circle. American stocks will probably fall even more leading to more selling around the world resulting in a planetary economic slowdown.

So what is this we are facing? Is it just another economic swing or something much bigger? Ask 100 economists and you will get 100 answers. Here's my take on it. We are realizing that everything in our world is interconnected. The war on terrorism, the war in Iraq, our unpopularity overseas all have economic components. We are spending a whole lot of money to support our agenda around the world. The United States is a rich nation but we have a finite amount of money. This is all catching up to us and there will be a reckoning. Most Americans alive today are too young to remember truly difficult times. 9-11 was certainly a crisis but it didn't impact most of our lives directly. Most of us don't believe we face something of the magnitude of the Great Depression or a World War. The truth is we can and may. Our economy, security and environment are more fragile than we know. We may soon find out just how fragile. Kent Ninomiya