squirrel235

When Hurricane Katrina essentially drowned New Orleans in 2005, the horror of Links of London Charms than 1,500 deaths and US$100 billion in damage was made exponentially worse by a hapless response that left thousands of Americans - most of them black - stranded, starving and wondering if they had drifted to some developing country. Of course, the worst of the catastrophes that befell the globe did (as usual) hit the developing world. The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 laid waste to entire coastlines. By the time the waters receded, more than 230,000 were dead. The Sichuan earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people and reduced cities to dust, and sparked an unprecedented global outpouring of sympathy for China. But Links of London Gingerbread Man devastation wrought around the global in the past 10 years was just as much financial as physical. Silicon Valley was a much less frothy place following the dotcom bust in 2000, punishing companies that based their valuations on sock puppets and venture capitalists' cash. But the worst was yet to come. On September 15, 2008, workers began to stream from the offices of the Lehman Brothers building just north of Times Square. One yelled to the press camped outside: "You're watching history, man" - and he could not have been more right, as the investment bank collapsed, triggering a banking crisis the likes of which had never been seen. The predictions were dire; the end of capitalism, of the US dollar, of life as we know it. There was no bottom, and it was time to stock the bomb shelter. Links of London Heart Charm, the decade is ending as it started, with champagne corks popping and market bubbles bursting around the world. "Roller coaster" scarcely does justice to the sort of gut-churning ride endured by investors over the 10 years. At the start of the year, the Hang Seng Index was on track for a money-losing stinker of a decade. But now in Hong Kong, stocks are enjoying the sort of rally that has seasoned investors patting each other on the back, as well as eyeing one another nervously and thinking the same thing; surely it can't last? Spare a thought for the US markets. The stock market was down 25 per cent, median household incomes were lower at the finish than at the start and unemployment was high. The corporate bone yard was filled with the carcasses of former high fliers from Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers and Bernie Madoff. That old Ponzi schemer made off with US$65 billion of what Wall Street likes to call OPM (Links of London Horseshoe Charm people's money). Also sticking their snouts in the OPM trough were bailout babies AIG, General Motors, and just about every major bank in the United States.