http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/u-s-companies-feel-impact-of-european-debt-crisis/article_9a2fe073-bab6-5a9d-ab3a-84105533f0bf.html
So as wonderful as the US economy is... the crisis in Europe is having a great impact on our companies and banks in a negative way. Just what we needed, right?
The European Union is the United States' number one trading partner, "Nearly $475 billion in goods crossed between the regions in the first nine months of 2011. About 14 percent of revenue for the 500 biggest U.S. companies — roughly $1.3 trillion — comes from Europe." So their spiraling downfall is obviously going to affect the companies and people living here in the US. Companies are losing a lot of profits, hesitant to hire, and people are not willing to spend during these hard times, forcing the prices to drop and hurt the companies even more. Companies such as: Whirlpool, General Motors, Nike Inc, Abercrombie & Fitch (although I wouldn't mind their prices dropping) are some examples of places losing lots of money due to the European debt. Even small businesses are getting hit by this. Some of the US corporations actually not hurting are Sara Lee, Kraft, and McDonalds.
The banks are also being greatly impacted as you could probably assume. They're cutting lending and holding onto all their cash so in case this crisis doesn't end soon, we're not hit AS much. If the crisis worsens, the debt we hold of European governments could lose value which would definitely be bad for our economy. The fear is that the US and European governments may be worried each other can't cover losses that the lending would stop completely. That would impact the whole global economy.
What should people in the US do to prepare for the Europeans potential downfall? How should companies try to increase profits while this whole crisis is undergoing? How may their crisis affect people our age in America?
