I still haven't felt anything. Is that naivety or isolation?

Same here. I'm going to go with isolation.

You won't notice much of it if you don't have stocks, your own house, don't pay taxes, ect. But it does have an effect around you I'm sure, just not on your allowance or salary (yet ;))

So I was talking to some americans last year and they said:
"Well, ok, Bush is bad, but he's only here for another year, and seriously, what can he possibly do between now and then?"

One Global economic recession later...

Ok, so maybe it's not all his fault, and maybe the economic state is bad enough to be called a global recession, but I like my story. :)

It wasn't directly Bush's fault. From what I've read, it was during Clinton's reign that the legislation regarding subprime mortgages was significantly relaxed - which led to the state we now see the US market in.

Bush could have certainly tightened the legislation, but I don't believe many people were paying attention to it, nor could foresee the current situation.

Alcar...

Only in America.

An Uncle of mine works at the bank mentioned before...

Merrill-Lynch? Lehman Brothers? Are you perhaps saying that he is out of job?

Don't get to greedy folks, or this might happen to you:

Bunch of people around here were greedy with their savings, wanting them on an account with a bank that gave them most interest. Apparently some shady bank in Iceland offered a nice interest rate, so this bunch of idiots all put their money to this particular bank so they can get an additional 100 bux a year over their money, which they lose in transfer costs anyway.

So now the financial crises comes swinging around and the bank goes bankrubt. Result? Everyone's money is POOF, gone. Big case of OWNED. So, people, don't be greedy, ya hear?

The Australian Stock Market has just lost even more. And here I thought we would be some what sheltered.

Alcar...

We are sheltered. Just imagine how much worse we'd be in an economy more strongly tied to the USA.

Now imagine how much better we'd be if we hadn't signed that free trade agreement with the US a few years back.

My uncle explained what's happening in Australia to me tonight; apparently a lot of investors were taking really cheap loans in Japan and then investing in the Australian stock market because of the good exchange rate. Then the banks started recalling the loans and the dollar started drooping and everyone started cashing in their shares and moving their cash back overseas. Thus the drop in the sharemarket and the further drop in the exchange rate.

Were you sitting on his knee?

Luckily I'm a student and am therefore in a somewhat sheltered position :), unless the Student Loan Company falls, then 80% of British university students are fucked.

This just about sums it up for me:
http://images.salon.com/comics/boll/...boll/story.gif

Also, I'm in a damn good situation right now seeing as the dropping value of property is going to cause people to stop selling houses and start renting them out (yay) and I have hardly any money invested in my superannuation so it's good to start a job when the stock market is down rather than up.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...mistohfuck.jpg
Yes I KNOW it's a fake cover. but still pretty damn awesome.

I wish they had the balls.