Contagion
(posted by Angelica)
London’s FTSE, the CAC in Paris and the XETRA DAX in Frankfurt, Germany were all down more than eight percent by mid afternoon Friday and fell further after Wall St. opened.
I don’t know if things have changed since I tuned in, but as of a few hours ago, CNN reported that <i>every single stock</i> on the FTSE index in England fell in value today at that point. Think about that. Every single stock. Even the shares of British American Tobacco. I can’t think of a company that’s (a) less connected to the banking/financial industry, and (b) has a product with a less elastic demand in the short term. There can no longer any doubt — this crisis has spread not just beyond the guilty banks, but beyond the financial sector into the real economy.
Tags: economics, financial crisis
October 10th, 2008 at 11:21 am
So how’s that bailout working out for you so far?
October 11th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Not great. How about the contention that this is just a Wall Street Crisis that can be left to its own devices?
October 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
See, look what the bailout did!