The global markets are in a free fall, again:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street headed for another precipitous drop Friday as fears of a punishing global recession stirred panic among investors and sent world financial markets into a tailspin. The Dow Jones industrial average futures fell as much as 550 points, triggering a freeze in selling.

The massive decline was caused by increasingly grim news from overseas. In Japan, shares of Sony sank more than 14 percent after it slashed its earnings forecast for the fiscal year. In Germany, Daimler's stock dropped 11.4 percent in morning trading after it reported lower third-quarter earnings and abandoned its 2008 profit and revenue guidance.

Japan's Nikkei stock average fell a staggering 9.60 percent. In Europe, Germany's benchmark DAX index was down 10.76 percent, France's CAC40 dropped 10 percent while Britain's FTSE 100 sank 8.67 percent after the governmnet said its gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, putting the country on the brink of recession. [...]

Fearing more carnage in world equity markets, big hedge funds and other institutional investors have been pulling out their money en masse in a bid to reduce risk and raise cash -- a process known as deleveraging that only intensifies the selling.

By the way, the US dollar fell to a 13 year low against the yen, which seems to be the currency of choice for cash hoarders. $1 is now worth around 93 yen. The dollar had been trading in the 105-98 yen range for the past month or so. The dollar also fell against the Euro. Yesterday I listened to some financial analyst on NPR's Talk of the Nation speculate that the market could go as low as 6000 in a worst case scenario, but he was still advising people to buy stocks because they are such bargains right now. Something tells me they are going to be bigger bargains after today. Something tells me our newest Republican financial wizard, Karl Rove, will find a way to blame Obama (or his trip to visit his ailing grandmother) for all this market chaos.

Bonus: Here's the video of "Republican Strategist" Brad Blakeman blaming Obama for flying to Hawaii to visit his his gravely ill grandmother. The Blakeman screed begins about 3 minutes in after he was asked a question about Palin's "wardrobe malfunction."

Update [2008-10-24 9:9:37 by Steven D]: This is probably all Obama's fault, too:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Corporate America is bleeding jobs and wielding the ax well beyond the financial sector.

As companies look at their prospects for the final quarter of the year and begin to see increasingly grim outlooks for 2009, they are cutting jobs from many different parts of their businesses. They are also slashing capital spending and, in some cases, dividends and even wages.