Oct 08 2008
Black Holes and Death Stars
Major markets around the world are being sucked into the black hole that is the U.S. economic crisis.
There are those that say we need to share the blame, and yes, there are banks in the UK and in Germany, and other Western economies, that have wandered down the same path and ended up in the same bramble bush… But the U.S. financial system has really become the black hole of the global economic universe.
Just look at all the cash that was thrown into the system: $12.5 billion injected into Citigroup by the government of Singapore and the Kuwait Investment Authority; China Investment Corp. paided $5 billion for a 9.9% stake in Morgan Stanley; Merrill Lynch got $6.6 billion from Korea…
And that doesn’t include the investments in other institutions across the pond, like the investments in Barclays by Singapore’s Temasek and the Qatar Investment Authority, or the Credit Suisse, Standard Charter, and UBS investments from SWFs around the world.
As you can imagine, these folks aren’t happy that their investments have all but disappeared. They’re not likely to make any similar investments in the near future, either.
And that leaves a gigantic wound in the financial machine… A black hole that continues to suck investor’s cash down a never-ending drain.
Thought the Dow would hold at 10,000? It didn’t.
Think the $700 billion “Death Star” bailout will contain the problem to just the U.S.? It won’t.

