A few weeks ago, one could still hope that America's financial crisis might be contained. China's economy was robust and countries such as Germany and Japan hadn't experienced the real-estate bubble that blew up the financial system of the United States. If those countries held up, American exports might continue to compensate for the retrenchment of American consumers; and bargain-hunting foreign buyers would support the real-estate markets of cities such as New York and Miami. It was a comforting fantasy—and it's evaporated as the bank failures have spread. The currency of debt-happy Iceland was effectively devalued by half today; nobody wants to accept the krone; the cold little island is likely to be the first entire country to go bankrupt, a catastrophe which warrants a headline even starker than Morgunbladid's in this gallery of international papers. (One can now be terrified by the banner headlines of financial catastrophe in many languages.)

Contact information for this author is not available.