ABSTRACT
The crisis began in 2007 with the first difficulties in the US property market. It then spread to some European countries before turning into a truly global crisis, which is having a profound effect on the process of globalization. The first phase of globalization of the financial markets involved the interaction of the Eurodollar market and the petrodollar market; the massive use of petrodollars to finance the economies of the developing countries led to the serious international debt crises of the early 1980s, and again ten years later. A week later, on 28th September, the US Congress approved the Troubled Asset Relief Programme, a $700 billion rescue plan for the banking sector. According to some experts, this was only an estimate, representing a compromise between the $1 trillion requested by Wall Street and the initial figure proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
