NEW YORK: Yet another wave of the global economic crisis is ready to hit U.S. shores -- and Wall Streeters are worried about whether Bill Clinton will be around to mind the dike. First victim: the Dow, which slid 345 points before bargain hunters swooped in near the bell and pushed the index back to 249 points in the red. "Devaluation fears and the sagging markets in Latin America are becoming a real problem," says FORTUNE writer Nelson Schwartz. "Unlike the situation in Russia, where U.S. exposure was in reality limited and the risks were mostly imagined, U.S. banks have a lot of money in Latin America. Any trouble there could really hit the markets hard."
And then there's the growing realization that Bill Clinton, captain of the '90s boom, could very well be in for a mutiny. "The sight of all those boxes arriving at the Capitol just makes people nervous," says Schwartz. "That has to be factored in." Along with those 36 boxes, Ken Starr's big black van may have delivered a warning call to investors: America's presidential troubles, just like its economic ones, aren't going away anytime soon.