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The following is an internal Stratfor document produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. This document is not a forecast, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.

Editor’s Note: The following is an internal Stratfor document produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. This document is not a forecast, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.

1. How far down will the United States go? The good news is that the capital crunch — as best demonstrated by the 3-month dollar London Interbank Offered Rate — continues to loosen. The question is: Do we have capitulation in the markets? Has everyone given up hope and sold all they can? If that is the case, then at any time now we should see many investors return to the market; for the United States, that will signal turning the corner. It is not clear that capitulation is imminent — but it is similarly unclear that it is not. The world’s money is flowing to the United States, so the world cannot recover until the United States does. And so we wait and watch.

2. The next developments in Europe: There is a veritable walk-in closet of shoes about to drop in Europe. While the United States’ first instinct (rightly so) was to free up liquidity, Europe’s first instinct (rightly so) was to start a bank bailout. European banks are far less healthy than their American counterparts, and those of Sweden, Hungary, Austria, Greece and Italy are skirting the edge of catastrophe. Europe appears on the verge of snowballing bank collapses, and unlike the United States, the European Union does not have the legal framework to regulate the sector, much less firewall off failed institutions. This should not directly impact the developments on the first question, but it is certainly the next big thing to look for as the crisis continues to unfold.

3. The significance of cheaper oil: Oil prices are now down by 55 percent; they have fallen $40 in the past month. Just as high prices in the summer altered the global balance of power, so too do low prices in the fall. We can’t predict when the plunge will stop, but it seems inevitable that the global economy is dealing with a wide reaching recession that could — in Europe, for example — be very deep. That will only force prices down more in the mid-term. It is time to start evaluating how states dependent upon high oil income — Venezuela and Iran come to mind — are going to make do with less.

4. Precarious economies: Between changes in commodity income, liquidity crises and collapses in credit markets, here is the short list of countries facing acute problems: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Iceland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Pakistan, Vietnam and South Korea. Some are obviously in better shape than others — South Korea and Sweden are nervously looking over the precipice at falling Pakistan and Iceland far, far below — but all need watching.