clipped from: www.guardian.co.uk Financial Armageddon, the meltdown, the crisis, or whichever title fits the bill this week, is about to enter another even more damaging phase in America.
And it would pay for the rest of the world to take notice because a fair amount of evidence has piled up in recent months to prove the adage about America sneezing and everyone else catching a cold.
The housing markets of much of Europe mimicked those in America by slumping after a few years of heady price increases. The credit markets of Europe and Asia seized up, again following America's lead. Then, of course, stock markets in London, continental Europe and the Far East lost trillions of dollars of value in the wake of several historic Wall Street plunges last week.
States have become accustomed to borrowing their way out of troubles like these, but today state and local governments are having just as hard a time securing credit as the banks and financial firms .