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LONDON — World stock markets fell Wednesday as investors worried about sovereign credit risks, particularly in Europe, in the wake of Greece's rating downgrade. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 35.95 points, or 0.7 percent, at 5,187.18 while Germany's DAX fell 62.93 points, or 1.1 percent, at 5,625.65. The CAC-40 was 20.12 points, or 0.5 percent, lower at 3,765.18. Wall Street opened lower despite earlier indications in the futures markets that U.S. stocks were looking to recoup some of the previous session's losses. The Dow Jones industrial average was 39.30 points, or 0.4 percent, lower soon...

The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank In a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve’s senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc. The impact would be devastating by making it punitively...