I suspect the Fat Cats are starting to panic. The US is running a current account deficit of 4.5% of GDP per year, i.e. importing $450 billion a year to fund its economy, and it's the world's biggest debtor nation (countries like Thailand and Malaysia were crushed by speculators for the comparatively mild sin of running 3-4% current account deficits). The panic is caused by two things: (1) there's mounting evidence (e.g. this July's ECB report) that the tech bubble didn't really drive up US productivity levels all that much, meaning that the New Economy is a crock and the dollar really is overvalued, plus (2) a cool 45% crash in June's semiconductor sales in the US. No dollar decline = no tech recovery = hell to pay when the EU and Japan decide to divert their credit flows elsewhere.
-- Dennis
-What is the US external debt (both overall and expressed as % GNP)?
Alexandre