by Claus Vistesen: Lausanne

As I peer out my window over towards the Alps and the northern entrance to Le Vallé du Rhône I can't help asking myself whether some of those experiments which are habitually conducted a mere 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? With every passing day getting I find it more and more difficult to avoid associating all those worthy attempts to uncover that illusive Hick's Particle with the all-encompassing black hole into which our financial markets seem to be getting sucked with a disturbing velocity, despite the numerous efforts by the global financial authorities to invent some sort of monetary equivalent to "anti-matter".

But while the current crisis is pretty much a generalised global one, if there is one region where the crisis is making its presence more acutely than elsewhere, that place is Eastern Europe, and among the

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As I peer out my window towards the Alpes and the northern entry point to Le Vallé du Rhône I am wondering whether the experiments conducted only 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? Consequently, it is getting decidedly difficult not to link the initiation of experiments to uncover the illusive Hick's Particle with the all encompassing black hole that seems to be disturbing the workings of financial markets.

One place where the crisis is fast making its presence increasingly felt is Eastern Europe as well as the Baltics; the latter being the immediate focus of this piece. This is not so strange. On many occasions since the credit crisis went global back in the summer of 2007 many analysts including yours truly have been flagging the risks for a hard landing in Eastern Europe. This situation has by and large materialised at this

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SPOT GOLD PRICES leapt once again in London trade on Wednesday, reaching $915 an ounce for US investors as the US Federal Reserve led a co-ordinated cut of 0.5% to major world interest rates. Currencies were left little changed against each other, but the Gold Price in British Pounds jumped to a new all-time record above £525 an ounce. For French, German and Italian investors, the Gold Price in Euros also broke new all-time highs, gaining 3% to €670. Stock markets halted a fresh plunge on the news after closing more than 9% lower in Tokyo . Germany's Dax index had earlier dropped almost 8% in Frankfurt, sinking to a new two-year low. Short-term government bond prices pushed higher still as interest rates fell. But longer-dated government debt � more vulnerable to long-term inflation � ticked lower. "Financial markets, specifically equities, are in the ...

In the currency market, the dollar was little changed against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.3672 vs. $1.3653 on Tuesday. The big event du jour was that, “For the first time since September 2001, central banks around the world have delivered a coordinated interest rate cut,” wrote Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT.

Key News• Yen Rises to Three-Year High on Concern Interest-Rate Cuts May Fall Short (Bloomberg)• Pending Home Resales in U.S. Increase 7.4% as Foreclosures Reduce Prices  (Bloomberg)• British Banks Get $87 Billion Government Lifeline to Save Financial System (Bloomberg)

Quotable “The avowed mystics held the arbitrary, unaccountable “will of God” as the standard of the good and as the validation of their ethics. The neomystics replaced it with “the good of society,” thus collapsing into the circularity of a definition such as “the standard of the good is that which is good of society.” This meant, in logic – and, today, in worldwide practice – that “society” stands above any principles of ethics, since it is the source, standard and criterion of ethics, since “the good” is whatever it wills, whatever it happens to assert as its own welfare and pleasure. This meant that “society” may do anything it pleases,

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