Will Everyone Grab a Bucket? This Thing is Sinking

By Robert Borosage

Created 03/11/2009 - 2:40pm

After slogging through the stimulus, the banking mess and the foreclosure crisis, our besieged president now must turn his attention to organizing global cooperation to lift the world economy. Real commitments have to be made, and we'll see if those around the world who celebrated Obama as a savior will call for his crucifixion.

Last year we worried about homes below water; now it is the economy itself that is sinking.

Warren Buffett says the U.S. economy has "fallen off a cliff." And, as bad as the U.S. is, the rest of the world is worse. Germany's exports have collapsed; Japan is in free fall; much of Eastern Europe may join Iceland in bankruptcy. The Asian Development Bank estimates the loss to financial assets worldwide at $50 trillion dollars —the equivalent of a full year of annual global output. It's not for nothing that National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair announced [1]that the economic collapse trumps terrorism and catastrophic climate change as the greatest threat to U.S. security.