The sovereign debt crisis keeps on threatening to spill out of Europe and spread to America. A French-Belgian bank called Dexia SA, which is one of Europe’s twenty largest banks in terms of assets, is being broken up by the government. The French and Belgian governments are go ing to have to guarantee part of the debt. Borrowing costs for both governments rose on Tuesday.

Naturally this caused a major sell-off in Europe and on Wall Street. The Dexia crisis extended to the U.S. Economies are so interconnected now that they all have to step in line.