The credit card effect
The credit card effect (as opposed to 'the butterfly effect') - one persons (credit card) debt could bankrupt a country - or even the world's economy. This is the perfect economic fractal example where dangerous massive debt burdens have migrated from the small scale (individual) to the large scale (country); the principle or idea (of debt) is the same, the scale is irrelevant. I explained the world's economic problems to my 10 year old daughter by reducing the problem to her scale - it was very easy. Today - through the mechanism of (moral hazard) bank bail-outs - it is countries that are getting burdened. Where to next? This is the perfect storm. '