As an American, this makes me extremely worried, as securing future loans and future job prospects are looking quite dim in the U.S. Even for long-term, fully employed people with excellent credit are finding it extremely difficult to secure a loan from mortage companies/banks, thanks to the subprime mortage crisis. As a result, I might have to put my plans on getting a condo/house on hold for the time-being.Wall Street is already feeling the sting, with massive turmoil in the financial markets, frozen credit and continued high unemployment. (See "Banks Bog Down.") The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 6.1% in August, a five-year high. So far this year, a staggering 605,000 jobs have vanished. The economy needs to generate more than 100,000 new jobs a month for employment to remain stable.
There are fears that the United States might fall into recession at the end of this year. Data on Thursday was similarly discouraging.
Source: Forbes.com - U.S. GDP Deflates
Although the economic crisis is hitting the U.S. hard, many countries around the world (particularly those that are tied closely to the U.S. economy), such as EU nations, South Korea, and Japan, are also affected by this and going through some economic difficulties of their own.