The great Wall Street bubble of the 1990s has definitively burst. Whether this financial crisis turns into a full scale global recession depends crucially on what happens in the world's two biggest economies.
Japan is in a desperate state.
After a decade-long slump the economy shrank in the third quarter of last year. The American economy is in much better shape, having grown increasingly rapidly since the early 1990s. But it is now slowing down fast. Industrial production hasn't grown since September. The fates of the two economies are closely intertwined.