Written by: Beck

What do you get when you mix a booming economy with a far left wing coalition? If you answered, "The biggest stock market crash in your nation's history," then you were right! Sonia Gandhi's left wing Congress party surprised pretty much everyone (at least everyone who was paying attention--the rest of us were too busy being proud of our selves for recognizing the name "Gandhi") when they dominated the recent nationwide elections in India. In order to secure the Prime Minister position, Gandhi will be forming a coalition government including the country's largest communist party among others. Here's a hint for all you aspiring economics students out there: free markets don't respond well to communists.

Trading was suspended twice Monday, with the key Sensex stock index plummeting almost 16 percent at one point to a low of 4227.50 -- the biggest crash in its 129-year history...

CNN's Ram Ramgopal in New Delhi said the one operative word in India at the moment was "fear," as investors realize that the communist and other leftist parties on whom Gandhi will have to rely to form a government, are against privatization.

Let me go ahead and repeat the important part for you. The one operative word in India at the moment is "fear". Nice work folks.

Update: Bastardsword has some observations on the India crash.