The global economic system has withstood a couple of severe tests in recent months. First came the sub-prime crisis, courtesy of greedy mortgage brokers, fast-buck bankers and inefficient corporate investors. Then came an act of supreme idiocy at Societe Generale, by which I don't mean the rogue trader (although smart he ain't), but the bank's management and the people who manage its internal controls. It seems neither group could be bothered to do their jobs.

How a so-called bank can permit one of its dealers to lose $7 billion before anyone notices will be the subject of exhaustive enquiries, but it will come down to stupidity, bad management and greed. It always does. I say "so-called" bank, because a bank is supposedly a rock-solid repository of other people's wealth. SocGen would not qualify by that definition.

At least two more huge shocks to the economic system remain in store this year, one definite and the other only possible at this stage.

The first is related to the sub-prime crisis and will be centred in New York and London, with a subsidiary spotlight here in Bermuda. Bond insurers are companies that underwrite government borrowings. When the State of California, for example, borrows money to build housing, it issues bonds as IOUs for the money it has borrowed. No one trusts them to pay the IOUs back, just on their say-so. Governments can go broke, just like the rest of us. After all, governments are run by people a little like us. So a bond insurer steps up to the plate and underwrites government loans, by guaranteeing at least the interest payments on the loans, if not the capital amount of the loans themselves.

Fine and dandy, until some of the bond insurers discovered in the past few weeks that they had made serious investments in blocks of sub-prime mortgages that turned out to be worth a whole lot less than the holders thought.

Isn't the sub-prime mess over, you ask? On one level, yes, mostly. The banks have largely 'fessed up to the losses they have incurred, and that part of the story is almost over, although a few of the larger banks have yet to release figures.

What comes next will be the wholesale downgrading of organisations whose bonds were underwritten by the bond insurers.

To give you an idea how serious this might be, two weeks ago Fitch Ratings downgraded Security Capital Assurance Ltd. (SCA), a bond insurer based in Bermuda. On Thursday, another rating agency, Moody's, followed suit. Bond insurers, as the line of last resort, must maintain AAA ratings, the very best there is. Security Capital, formerly part of XL Capital, lost its AAA rating over its imprudent investment in sub-prime mortgage packages. Last week, Fitch cut its ratings on 37,541 municipal bonds because the security on which they leant, that of SCA, was no longer AAA-rated.

More, loads more, ratings cuts will follow as the result of imprudence at other bond insurers. Quite a few businesses and government agencies can only keep up their borrowings if the assets they hold maintain their ratings. This means it's going to get ugly before it gets better.

The second catastrophic shock that the financial markets are dreading may not happen. It's the election of Hillary Clinton to the US presidency. The chatter in the securities markets is that a Hillary election would drive the Dow down by half. That's a greatly exaggerated fear, but Mrs. Clinton is not seen as a friend of the capital markets.

If she were to win the election and become Madam President, the best advice I can give you would be to hop on a shuttle at once for another galaxy. Failing that, buy a soup bowl and a spoon and hope that the Salvation Army remembers all those enormous donations you made when things were going well. You did make enormous donations to the Salvation Army, didn't you? Well, it's never too late.

The good news is that I'm forecasting that Mrs. Clinton won't win the nomination, let alone the election in November. The bad news is that I've never correctly forecast a US general election in my life. I think that all-American hero John McWayne will win, unless Barak Obama somehow wrecks the Duke's campaign.

I don't think the US is yet sufficiently mature to elect a black President. Down, political correctness hounds and conspiracy theorists. I do think that Obama will one day be the first black President; I just think it's too soon. But, as I say, I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'll stop talking about it.

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Last week's mildly sardonic column about telecommunications problems in the East End produced a series of short, sharp responses. Here they are, in full: "You write that you are forgotten and despised," a reader wrote. "If you have been forgotten, how can you be despised?"

Fair point. It's hard, but we manage it.

"It's the Longbird Bridge, not the Longtail," wrote another reader. I was using Longtail in the abbreviated sense. Its full name is Longtailback.

"Ten points!" wrote another reader. "My wife got her endorphins for the weekend and I laughed so hard I thought my pants would never dry."

Finally, I should point out that BTC very kindly repaired my telephone lines a few hours before the column appeared. I now have high hopes of finding a wife. Your wife, perhaps.