Weekly Buggles

Mansoor Ali Khan is smiling again. He is once again dreaming of taking his parents on a vacation to Europe.

Hope is making a cautious comeback a year after the collapse of iconic US investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered a free fall in stock markets worldwide and overnight turned people like Khan, a 31-year-old sub-broker, from aspiring millionaires to debt-laden near-paupers.

A vicious cycle of home loan defaults in the US, banking collapses – Lehman Brothers, the world’s two largest home loan givers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and AIG, the world’s largest insurer, went bust in September 2008 – massive job losses and bankruptcies combined to create conditions akin to the Great Depression of 1929.

Indian companies felt the pinch as cash-strapped western companies cut back on imports and fearful consumers worldwide and in India tightened their purse strings. Export growth turned negative in October– a trend that continues till date. H.T.

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