The crash unfolding on Wall Street is not just the fall of once-mighty banks and corporations that took on too much debt, but
the collapse of an American economy and lifestyle that for decades has been purchased with credit cards. The nation's creditors - many of them foreign countries such as China and Brazil with ample economic needs of their own - reached a point this summer at which they were no longer willing to extend new loans in light of burgeoning default rates.
One of every 10 American homeowners has stopped making mortgage payments, and high-flying investment banks such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns that peddled American debt around the world found themselves in bankruptcy and default.
The boycott by foreign lenders is forcing U.S. businesses and consumers to live more within their means, while political leaders frantically try to find ways to keep the financial sector alive without the free flow of an estimated $3 billion a day from abroad, analysts say. The spigot of foreign money in the heyday of the credit boom earlier this decade enabled everyone from Wall Street's best and brightest to college students with no income to easily obtain cheap loans.
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/global-creditors-end-us-spending-spree/
