The U.S. Financial Crisis Is Spreading to Europe and U.K.

Barely a week after Europeans rebuffed American pleas to join in their bailout of the banking system, Europe now faces a financial crisis almost as grave as that in the United States -- demonstrating how swiftly this contagion is spreading around the world.

In the last two days, governments from London to Berlin have seized or bailed out five faltering banks. In Ireland, where rumors of panicked withdrawals from banks spooked the stock market, the government has offered a two-year blanket guarantee on all deposits and bank debt.

Asia has been less buffeted by the turmoil, though a brief run on a bank in Hong Kong last week brought back dark memories of June 1997, when speculation against the Thai currency sparked a financial crisis that fanned rapidly across Asia, and later to Brazil and Russia.

Economists see a parallel between these two crises a decade apart: once creditors panic and begin to pull out their holdings, the underlying health of banks -- or entire countries -- no longer matters a great deal. In a global financial system, national borders are porous.

"In this day and age, a bank run spreads around the world, not around the block," said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank. "Once a bank run is under way, it doesn't matter anymore if you have good loans or bad loans. People lose confidence in you."

In a sign of how vulnerable Russia remains to contagion, officials halted trading on the Moscow stock exchange for two hours on Tuesday morning, fearing investor reaction to the House's rejection of the Bush administration's bailout plan. Trading resumed, and after President Bush vowed to win approval of the package, shares bounced back.

"People ask, 'What on earth is happening with Russia?' " said Roland Nash, chief analyst at Renaissance Bank in Moscow. "Russia is reacting to the unprecedented size, complexity and danger coming out of the U.S."

The shock waves could reverberate to the United States, experts said, since Russia has plowed its oil wealth into American debt, including Fannie Mae's. Russia has additional problems, including unstable oil prices and a newly assertive foreign policy that is unpopular with many investors.

The trigger for the loss of confidence in Europe, Mr. Mayer and other experts said, was the Treasury Department's decision two weeks ago to let Lehman Brothers fail. That ricocheted through European markets, hurting banks and retail investors with exposure to Lehman.

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