Markets always tend to be unstable on the way down.
The damage in domestic and international bond markets dwarfs any simple measurement. The ''normal'' relationships between the most secure and the riskiest assets have been thrown into total disarray in all markets, creating distress that itself propagates crisis. The main channel of contagion is the ongoing slowdown in world growth and the impact on prices for raw materials, particularly oil, the main exports of most developing countries. Moreover, what until now has been a financial crisis threatens to become a political confrontation between haves and have-nots. Since the crisis erupted in Thailand in mid-1997 and then engulfed the rest of Southeast Asia and then Russia and now threatens Latin America, payments on only a handful of international bonds have been suspended.