Feb 22/09.  The financial crisis has moved from Wall Street to all streets, as the economic shock causes strains and suffering in every part of the world economy.

Among the most significant developments has been the realization that the most prudent countries – such as Germany, Japan and China – will suffer as badly as the spendthrifts, or even worse. Despite the whiff of hubris that wafted from Berlin when the banks of Britain and America went into meltdown, Germany's economy contracted by two per cent in the last quarter of 2008, compared with 1.5 per cent for Britain's.

The problem was that the Chinese and Germans were too thrifty: their countries' growth was reliant on sales of goods to countries that were borrowing. Now that Americans can't afford its products, China's exports have collapsed, down 17.5 per cent in January from a year earlier. - www.telegraph.co.uk