ince the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries of Eastern Europe have emerged as critical allies of the United States in the region, embracing American-style capitalism and borrowing heavily from Western European banks to finance their rise.<\/p>\n
Now the bill is coming due.<\/p>\n
The development boom that turned Poland, Hungary and other former Soviet satellites into some of Europe\u2019s hottest markets is on the verge of going bust, raising worrisome new risks for the global financial system that may ricochet back to the United States.<\/p>\n
Last week, Wall Street plunged after Moody\u2019s Investors Service warned that Western banks that had recently beat a path to Eastern Europe\u2019s doorstep now faced \u201chard landings,\u201d\u009d spooking investors with new fears that the exposure could spread beyond Europe\u2019s shores.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a domino effect,\u201d\u009d said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor at Harvard and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. \u201cInternational credit markets are linked, and so a snowballing credit crisis in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries could cause New York municipal bonds to fall.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n