Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"I think in two ways. First, many economists say that today's recession is actually the first recession of the globalized economy. Many put the fully globalized economy as starting in the year 2000 with the admission of China into the World Trade Organization. What this means is that we're looking at economic linkages and flow backs between countries, financial and otherwise, that we've never seen before because they've never been as strong as they have been in the past. And for example, one implication of this is that we've seen recently stock markets in foreign countries going down just like they're going down here in the U.S. The second aspect of this new economy is the fact that we've never seen a contraction in the housing market like we're seeing now. We have had in the past periods of time where the housing market slowed. We've had little tiny dips in housing prices, but nothing like we're seeing now, where by some measures housing prices right now nationally are falling somewhere between 8 percent and 16 percent. So I think that's one reason why this financial crisis that we're in now is so challenging."