EconomicCrisis.US

Around the world, investors are breathing a sigh of relief as the surprise financial crisis in Dubai starts looking more and more like a regional, not global, contagion. But the crisis has shined a spotlight on the dangers of overleveraged governments – and every American should be paying attention.

In many ways, Dubai is a special case. It’s a glitzy city-state controlled by a sheikh, populated mostly by migrant workers at every level of the economic spectrum. It’s had a reputation as the Vegas of the Middle East – and its flashy, fast-rising hotels, shady forms of financing and (comparatively) lax social standards seemed to fit the bill.
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U.S. stock futures rose on Thursday as markets interpreted news that Bank of America is repaying the government $45 billion as a sign that economic conditions are improving.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.3 points to 1,111.20 and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 2.25 points to 1,793.70. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 27 points.

U.S. stocks were languid on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average retreating 19 points while the S&P 500 rose fractionally and the Nasdaq Composite rose 9 points. ADP estimated job losses of 169,000 but the Fed’s Beige Book said economic conditions improved modestly.
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As we reach the end of a miserable 2009, signs continue to mount across the globe that the world economy is stirring back to life. The U.S. finally returned to growth in the third quarter, with its strongest showing in two years, India posted inspiring 7.9% growth and the results out of tiny Taiwan, one of the economies slammed the hardest by the global recession, were so impressive one economist beamed that the island “got its groove on.” Stock markets, aside from a downward blip here and there, have generally been buoyant. During this season of Thanksgiving and holiday cheer, there seems to be good reason to give thanks and be cheerful.
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From Enron to Madoff, bear markets to financial crises, bubbles to bailouts, jobless recovery to double-digit unemployment — this has been an economically brutal first decade for the new millennium.

It has bred doubt about the resilience of the American economy. It has stirred calls to dust off New Deal designs.

It has turned our world upside down.

After all, the 1990s were a jobs machine, a deficit destroyer, a stock market utopia. We even deflated the Y2K threat.

It seems now that all those zeros on our new calendars were trying to warn us about the encroaching fleet of financial Hindenburgs.
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