Subprime mortgage market and the CDOs etc., which constituted a very small part of the global financial assets, the ravaging fire has spread across all segments of financial sector, and across continents. Flight to safety also put pressure on commodity prices which appeared to be an alternate avenue to hedge investors from financial market upheavals.
2 Moreover, as the national debt grows,  1  For a discussion of fiscal pressures at the state and local levels, see Ben S. Bernanke (2010), “Challenges for the Economy and State Governments,” speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Legislative Conference of the Council of State Governments, held in Charleston, S.C., August 2.