Stock Market Game Week in Review

The Stock Market Game is a curriculum-based teaching tool that allows students to invest a hypothetical $100,000 online stock portfolio to learn about long-term saving and investing.

It was another week marred by bad news (and not just for Madonna and Guy Ritchie). It appears investors around the world are convinced the global economy is on the brink of a long and painful recession, if it's not already in one.

Stock markets from Japan to Germany plummeted Friday, and oil prices plunged to their lowest levels in more than a year. Here in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 480 points, or 5%, in early trading. Before the open of New York trading, Dow futures dropped 550 points, triggering a temporary halt to trading in an effort to slow the decline. If the Dow had dropped 1,100 points before 2:00 p.m. EDT Friday, the New York Stock Exchange's "circuit breakers" would have temporarily shut down the market -- something that hasn't happened since 1997. (Don't miss "Stocks in U.S. Can't Dig Out of the Red")

The common denominator throughout the world is the growing fear that governments, central banks and finance gurus seem powerless to stop the "bleeding" and prevent a global recession, which will slam corporate earnings and lead to deep job losses around the globe.

Governments have taken unprecedented steps to thaw frozen credit markets and avert the downturn by encouraging lending. The banking lending rate, which allows banks to borrow freely from one another, has been steadily declining since the signing of the bailout package, but many economists are warning the worst is yet to come and that even more assistance is needed to get the U.S. (and global) economy back on track.