This bankrupt system that pushes the wealth to the top is at end. It's done, toast, KAPUT!!!!
Sovereign debt fears signal new stage of global crisis
By Barry Grey
6 February 2010
Stock markets in Europe and Asia fell sharply Friday in the second day of a near-panic selloff fueled by fears that the debt crisis facing weaker European economies will throw the world economy into a “double-dip” recession.
Commodity prices—oil and gold, in particular—also fell sharply.
In the US, triple-digit losses on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were recouped in the final hour, resulting in small gains for the Dow and the other major indexes in volatile trading, following a sharp selloff on Thursday.
The Dow ended the day with a 10-point gain, following a 268-point plunge on Thursday. The index, which was below the 10,000 mark for most of the day, has lost 6.5 percent over the past two weeks.
All of the major European indexes closed down, with France’s CAC-40 falling the most—3.4 percent, its biggest one-day drop since November 26. The Pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index was off 2.2 percent, its lowest close since November 3.
Japan’s Nikkei fell 2.89 percent and the Shanghai Composite was off by 1.87 percent.
Stocks were down for the second day in Greece, Portugal and Spain, three heavily indebted eurozone countries whose ability to redeem bondholders—including major European and US banks—is increasingly in doubt. Prices of government bonds of all three countries continued to fall and interest rates rose further, as global investors increased pressure on the three governments to impose draconian austerity measures on their respective populations.
The cost of credit default swap (CDS) contracts on the debt of the three countries rose even more dramatically. Credit default swaps—now a multi-trillion-dollar market—are a form of unregulated derivatives in which CDS sellers guarantee the value of bonds held by CDS buyers. Rising CDS prices reflect eroding confidence in corporate or government bonds insured by the sellers of the CDS contracts.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/mark-f06.shtml