Markets dive at record rates around the world

Fear. If there was one word to sum up the world's financial markets Monday, it was that. No one wanted to buy shares and, yet again, no one much wanted to lend money. Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, told Congress his bank had been blown away by a "storm of fear." That storm shows no sign of subsiding. Banks are one thing; countries quite another. Yet now, almost unbelievably, the credit crisis seems on the point of claiming its first victim among sovereign nations -- Iceland, whose banks have been badly exposed to the global chaos and where they are now closed. There is talk of her having to join the European Union simply to be bailed out, like a national Bradford and Bingley. The Asian markets felt the fear first, and Tokyo slumped to a four-year low, as did China. Emerging markets dropped by... [read full story]