Infection

In the first year of the credit crisis, the world economy didn’t fare too badly. But companies and individuals increasingly can’t find the money to borrow – and are too frightened to spend it even if they could. It has been a long time coming. In the year before subprime mortgages started going wrong, world GDP increased by 4.7%, according to Goldman Sachs. In the subsequent 12 months, through the second quarter of 2008, growth slowed, but only to 3.9%. In the US, growth actually picked up, from...