From Financial Meltdown to Global Depression?

When policy actions don’t provide relief to market participants, you know that you are one step away from a collapse of the financial system and the corporate sector. Will the recent measures adopted by the US and Europe be enough to ward off a global depression?

NEW YORK – The rich world’s financial system is headed towards meltdown. Stock markets have been falling most days, money markets and credit markets have shut down as their interest-rate spreads skyrocket, and it is still too early to tell whether the raft of measures adopted by the United States and Europe will stem the bleeding on a sustained basis.

A generalized run on the banking system has been a source of fear for the first time in seven decades, while the shadow banking system – broker-dealers, non-bank mortgage lenders, structured investment vehicles and conduits, hedge funds, money market funds, and private equity firms – are at risk of a run on their short-term liabilities. 

On the real economic side, all the advanced economies – representing 55% of global GDP – entered a recession even before the massive financial shocks that started in late summer. So we now have recession, a severe financial crisis, and a severe banking crisis in the advanced economies.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Subscribe

or

Register for FREE to access two premium articles per month.

Register

Support High-Quality Commentary

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world's foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

https://prosyn.org/c1NIfl4