Even Oil-rich producers are getting HIT

The government of Kuwaiti is announcing that is has had to bail out the countries 2nd largest bank, Gulf Bank. In Saudi Arabia the government is saying it will use up to $2.5 Billion USD to guarantee some depositors and institutions in their kingdom. Whoa! isn't that a quick turn of events?

Goes to show you that even the mighty can fall and fall quickly. Remember when in the 1980's Japan was considered the economic powerhouse that would eventually take over the world? Well, they haven't been heard from for over 10-15 years, and its actually what may have saved them from this financial crisis.

Japan unlike the oil-rich Gulf countries did not participate in these toxic paper assets and so they aren't as exposed to this financial crisis as others even though their stock market is getting hit like all the others. Japan's financial institutions are not having capitalization issues due to NOT having huge amounts of these toxic financial derivatives on their balance sheets. This is why there are large move of monies from the US dollar to the Japanese Yen.