So, one of the things I really like about this board is that it's not US centric, which gives a very different perspective on a lot of things. My question is, how does the world seem to view the US credit/subprime mortgage crisis? Has it affected the rest of the world strongly yet? Has it touched anybody here personally? What do you think the US Government needs to do, or should we do anything?

To give you my basic ideas - I think that this is a serious crisis in our markets, with credit being so difficult to obtain that even people with good credit cannot get loans, however, I think that what our economy needs right now is a recession, to force new innovation of credit markets, and a reevaluation of the strengths and benefits of a credit based economy. The economic bailout of the credit markets strikes me as dangerous, as the United States taxpayer ends up in even greater debt than we already are, and it is a slap in the face to everybody who is poor and needed government assistance - we don't spend that much to help individuals, why is it that we can suddenly come up with the money when the large banks are in trouble?

To quote weekend update last night "Remember that house you couldn't pay for, well now your paying for it." Well the problem is that if you don't do anything the market freezes for sure, this won't really unfreeze the credit market, but it gives a little time to come up with something better, this plan shouldn't be seen as an end all plan. The problem on Wall St. now is confidence, and all the investors are afriad to do anything, but sell stocks and move into things like gold and treasury notes that are guarantied to be safe. I have already been affected by this twice, once earlier this summer when I went to get the loan I usually use to pay half my rent while I'm at school, the company no longer was giving out loans and they were backed by HSBC. Second was last week when Wamu was bought out by Chase, Wamu was the only bank I have ever banked with that I liked and I'm sure Chase will Chase it up with fees and close my branches I use, cause Chase is already huge in Chicago.