Leveraged Planet

Two economically apocalyptic items from the NYTimes.  The first is from yesterday, April 2, a story called "Leveraged Planet" about how the global market almost came crashing down two weeks ago with the fall of Bear Stearns, and how a global economic catastrophy is all but inevitable.  Notice the image of a precariously balanced globe:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/the-leveraged-planet/

The second is from today, April 3, reporting that 81% of Americans feel "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track."  "Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll."  I suspect Americans may have been less satisfied during the Civil War, but that was a couple of years before the polling began, so we can only speculate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/us/03cnd-poll.html?hp

In looking for the "Leveraged Planet" article, I tried to search "global" in the Times Business section.  That turned out to be a bad strategy as "global" appeared in 20 of the stories in today's Business section.  I'm not sure how many stories the Times ran in Business today, but it can't have been many more than 20.  In light of the polls and reminders of the globalization and recession everywhere (http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/15/surviving-the-2008-recession/) it's easy to get caught up in the feeling that America is heading toward an economic apocalypse.