London Bridge Is Falling Down...

For all the bad financial news coming out of the U.S., Europe is having its own share. A rogue trader costs Société Général $7 billion in France - and the person's superiors might have known what was going on, as management did throughout all the stupid choices of financial institutions here. The euro has dropped, London's FTSE index has dropped, and British bank Northern Rock, which was supposed to get a bailout from private equity group Olivant has just heard that its white night rode right past (because of inflexible conditions given by the government, so Olivant is claiming).

To hope that a financial mess in the U.S. could be contained, with other countries propping prospects for investors, is naive. When the economy becomes global, it by definition becomes interrelated. You can't see one part tumble and expect that everyone else will be left standing. You certainly can't expect that a financial system that decided to go for the high risk "easy" profits can avoid eventually paying for that free lunch.