Today's declines in Asia were even more severe than those yesterday, and several markets hit multiyear lows. Indian shares plunged so quickly -- nearly 11 percent -- that its stock markets halted trading soon after opening. In South Korea, volatile futures prices prompted the main Kospi market to briefly suspend program selling orders at midday. The Australian market suffered its worst one-day fall ever, while Japan's Nikkei fell 5.65 percent to its lowest point since 2005. It is down nearly 18 percent this year.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was down 8.65 percent today, after dropping 5.49 percent yesterday. It's off 19 percent this year and is 30 percent lower than a peak in late October.

"This is an expression of panic -- really nothing less than panic about prospects for the U.S. economy," said Stephen Green, senior economist with Standard Chartered Bank.

Free-fall. On October 9, 2007, the Dow closed at 14,164.53, it's all time high. This morning, the Dow opened at 11,830.88. That's down 17% in the last 14 weeks. Without this morning's move by the Fed, we probably would have been looking at the same things the overseas markets saw in the past two days, and given the problems in the US economy (the subprime disaster and the credit card crunch just for starters) this is going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better.

But don't take my word for it, here's Mort Zuckerman of U.S. News and World Report, "You’ve heard me say here I think we are facing the worst financial crunch and crisis since the Great Depression." The full text of that can be found here. And he's just the tip of the iceberg.