Nicolae Sfetcu

China

In China, a struggle was underway to see who would swallow the losses on US Agencies and Treasuries. On November 9, 2008 China announced a package of capital spending plus income and consumption support measures. Four trillion yuan ($586 billion) will be spent on upgrading infrastructure, particularly roads, railways, airports and the power grid; on raising rural incomes via land reform; and on social welfare projects such as affordable housing and environmental protection.

Number of U.S. household properties subject to foreclosure actions by quarter

The United States entered 2008 during a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis and a declining dollar value. In February, 63,000 jobs were lost, a 5-year record. In September, 159,000 jobs were lost, bringing the monthly average to 84,000 per month from January to September of 2008.

An economic bubble (sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, or a speculative mania) is “trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values”.

In 2008, a global economic crisis was suggested by several important indicators of economic downturn worldwide. These included high oil prices, which led to both high food prices (due to a dependence of food production on petroleum, as well as using food as an alternative to petroleum) and global inflation; a substantial credit crisis leading to the bankruptcy of large and well established investment banks as well as commercial banks in various nations around the world; increased unemployment; and the possibility of a global recession.

A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors. They often follow speculative stock market bubbles.

An economic disaster is the widespread disruption or collapse of a national or regional economy, possibly causing financial panic, hoarding, famine, hyperinflation, political upheaval or revolution. Some of these occurrences are short-lived, while others last many years. Economic disasters are rarely the product of purely economic forces such as the stock market or monetary policy. Political and natural forces, such as hurricanes or droughts, can also play roles.