The crisis of confidence in the American financial system has catalyzed a chain reaction of financial and political events, stunning global investors and creating a magnitude of uncertainty surrounding the near-term global outlook, according to a new report.
In the MAPI Quarterly Forecast of U.S. Exports, Global Growth, and the Dollar: Fourth Quarter 2008 Through Fourth Quarter 2009, economist Cliff Waldman writes that some elements of the mid-September drama were simply steps toward the full and inevitable restructuring of a financial industry that had failed to appreciate and adjust for the systemic risks posed by the securitization mania of the last 20 years or more. But the dramatic elevation of risk aversion has become economically threatening.
