CRISIS AT THE AMERICAN SUB-PRIME MORTGAGE MARKET – THE ASSESSMENT OF POLAND’S ENDANGERMENT

Since July 2007 the global economy has gone into slowdown. At the beginning it seemed that the situation was to concern mainly the United States, as it was where the increasingly disturbing information was pouring from. It was believed of course that the system of combined blood vessels, which economy is after all, should also influence those countries which are doing well. However, hardy anyone was able to presume that the crisis would have such profound long-term consequences. Presently, even those countries which seem to bear no responsibility for the causes of the slowdown are threatened by the crisis. We have witnessed the emergence of the new phenomena in the global economy, with which we do not know how to deal with. The author of this paper presented such unfavorable phenomena of the crisis as well as a cross-country comparison of the recent macroeconomic changes. The comparison is the first step to answering to the question whether Poland is threatened by the crisis as well and whether Poles can feel safe in their country.