For economic commentators who have been predicting gloom and doom, this could be the big one. The markets have resumed their tailspin despite a rescue for Bear Sterns, the investment bank that has come a cropper because of its ill-fated expansion into securities based on sub-prime mortgages.

Is there some biblical justice here? Banks that basically tried to screw the poor by dangling unsuitable home loans to them are now reaping the whirlwind. The problem is, of course, that those at the top got their bonuses, leaving the rest of us to face the consequences of reckless banking behavior.

Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, is in typically robust form, arguing that Americans have been conned.

"They have been duped by a bunch of serpent-tongued hucksters who packed up the wagon and made it across the county line before a lynch mob could be formed."