European, Asian Markets Plunge as Recession Fears Spread Worldwide

European, Asian Markets Plunge as Recession Fears Spread Worldwide

As stock indexes plunge across Europe and Asia, Britain unveiled plans today to inject up to 50 billion pounds—close to $90 billion—into its biggest retail banks. Recent efforts to bolster world credit markets have failed to stem fears that the spreading financial crisis could lead to a global recession. We go to Rome to speak to economist Loretta Napoleoni, author of Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/8/european_asian_markets_plunge_as_recession



the following articles include:
the economies of Russia, Asia, Britain, Iceland, Central and Eastern Europe


In Russia, a Struggle for Markets Just to Stay Open

Every day this week, regulators have had to halt trading on Russia’s main bourses, the world’s hardest-hit stock markets during the current crisis...Regulators said the Micex would reopen on Friday; the RTS was suspended indefinitely.

At issue are two problems. First, Russian companies used shares as collateral to borrow an untold amount of money. Second, the market decline is forcing a spiral of margin-call selling.

Published: October 8, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09ruble.html?ref=business


Stocks Fall Sharply in Asia

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: October 5, 2008

Stock markets fell sharply in early trading on Monday in Asia on growing fears about the health of banks around the world and the prospects for a downturn in Asian exports to the weakening economies of the United States and Europe.

The Nikkei 225 Index dropped 4.3 percent in Tokyo by early afternoon on Monday, as waves of selling pushed the index steadily lower. The Kospi Index in Seoul was off 4.4 percent. The Standard and Poor’s/Australian Stock Exchange 200 Index in Sydney was down 3.3 percent, the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell 3.4 percent and the Taiex Index in Taiwan declined 4.1 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07asiastox.html?scp=2&sq=asia&st=cse


Britain Takes a Different Route to Rescue Its Banks

By LANDON THOMAS JR. and JULIA WERDIGIER
Published: October 8, 2008

In a bold move to restore confidence, Britain announced an unprecedented £50 billion government lifeline for the nation’s banks Wednesday that it hailed as a quicker solution to the credit crisis than a $700 billion American plan to buy impaired mortgage assets from troubled financial institutions.

Britain offered banks like Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC Holdings up to £50 billion, or $88 billion, to shore up their capital in exchange for preferred shares. It will also provide a guarantee of about £250 billion ($438 billion) to help banks refinance debt. The Bank of England will double the amount it lends to banks under its special liquidity plan to £200 billion.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose political legacy is at stake, presented the British strategy as a means to address the heart of the crisis — fear among banks to lend. “This is not the American plan,” he said Wednesday. “Our plan is to buy shares in the banks themselves and therefore we will have a stake in the banks. We are not simply giving money.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09pound.html?pagewanted=all


Britain Announces Huge Bank Bailout

By JULIA WERDIGIER
Published: October 8, 2008

Britain on Wednesday announced a rescue package for its beleaguered banks, which the prime minister described as more extensive than America’s bailout plan and which could leave the country’s top lenders partly owned by the government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09britain.html


Bank Crisis Is Bypassing Central and East Europe

New members of the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe have — so far — avoided much of the upheaval caused by the crisis of confidence in the global financial system.

Although consumer spending is falling and growth rates are declining in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and particularly in Estonia, analysts said the trends were not related to the banking turmoil spreading across the Continent.

Published: October 8, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09euroeast.html?ref=business


In Flailing Iceland, Disbelief and Regret

By ERIC PFANNER
Published: October 8, 2008

The global financial crisis has laid waste to some major banks and other financial institutions in the United States and Europe, but Iceland may be the first country to face the prospect of going bust along with them...with the country facing the imminent threat of “national bankruptcy,” as Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde put it earlier this week, many people are talking about an epochal change. The only problem is that nobody knows what that might mean. The Rev. Karl Sigurbjornsson, the bishop of Iceland, who leads the state-sponsored Lutheran church, says he worries about how the prospect of financial suffering will affect a society that “was led to believe that it was unlimited growth forever.” To Bishop Sigurbjornsson, the silver lining in the financial crisis is the prospect that it will bring Icelanders, steeped in the sagas of the Vikings, back in touch with traditional values.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09icebank.html?ref=business&pagewanted=all