Wall Street opened Monday with mixed results and struggled throughout the trading day. The G-20 Summit in Toronto seems to have given investors more than a bit of pessimism looking forward to a recovery. The worst performance was by the S&P 500, which dropped 0.20 percent (2.19 points). The NASDAQ (0.13 percent, 2.83 points) and Dow Jones (0.05 percent, 5.29 points) followed closely behind.

Though markets did finish in the red yesterday that slump is no comparison to the enormous drop at the open Tuesday. Within one hour American markets were down roughly 2 percent, pushing the Dow Jones below 10,000 points once again.

According to Peter Cardillo of Avalon Partners the primary drag on investment is a worry that European banks will come up short in their bailout repayments. The European Central Bank handed out nearly €442 billion in lending during the height of its financial crisis; failure to repay the loans will likely result in significant financial upheaval.

In other news, according to Bloomberg, home prices in the United States climbed 3.8 percent from April 2009 to April 2010. The 3.8 percent jump was the biggest year-to-year increase since September 2006, but it does not necessarily mean that the economy is getting better.

An increase in home values is great news for those who already own a home, but it is terrible for those in the market for property. With unemployment hovering near 10 percent and disposable income now a thing of the past, most people will be unable to finance a home mortgage. This sort of stagnation could potentially last for years as those who were left out of the rescues struggle to revive the economy on their own.

Elsewhere in the world the U.S. can catch a small glimpse of what can happen if debt is allowed to devastate the finances of a national government. According to Reuters, tens of thousands of Greeks are either marching in the streets or performing a nationwide general strike today in protest to pension and benefits cuts.

The Greek people have been asked to shoulder the burden of their government’s largesse as it tries to cope with mounting deficits. Many of them have reacted strongly, and sometimes violently, to the move to increase the retirement age and cut pension allotments.

The United States will face a similar fate in the future if it is unable to control its expanding budget. Unfortunately, unlike the unionized Greeks, most Americans lack the institutional backing to actually defend themselves against forced cutbacks.

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