I have looked down on it from the Triborough Bridge a thousand times en route to New York’s JFK or LaGuardia airports. Rikers jail a vast anaemic yellow grey brick block house dominating Rikers Island in New York’s East River. I have wondered at the windows – solid opaque glass bricked things.

He may be out of sight, but he’s not yet out of mind. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has just spent his second night in his 11 ft by 13 ft cell. Will he have heard the calls for him to step down from the leadership of the International Monetary Fund? They are led by Austria’s Finance Minister, bolstered discretely by top level US anxieties.

DSK is sharing Rikers with a staggering 14,000 other male inmates although he is under “special protection” which accords him, for the moment, a cell to himself. His breakfast is served this morning between 5am and 6am. According to a contact of mine who was in there for a bit, breakfast consists of processed meat, tinned veg, some wonky cabbage, and a sickly sweet orange drink. I don’t feel well even writing this.

It is a cavernous distance from the Midtown Sofitel, whose $3,000 a night suite he might be able to glimpse on the Manhattan skyline, if his cell window had see-through glass. An hour of exercise, a shower a day, and three visitors (behind glass) a week for an hour each. DSK’s crash is beyond a Bonfire of the Vanities (if you haven’t read it, read it now). My contact describes seeing crack smoked; hearing the screams of assault, and worse. The jail is eternally a sleepless din.

And the alleged victim? What support is she getting? What pressure is she under?

It’s possibly the most high profile civil arrest of all time. News of it is so shocking, so repelling, that one gulps upon hearing it on the radio.

The first classedness of so squalid an accusation. The most expensive hotel suite, most of us have ever heard of, let alone seen; a mobile phone belonging to the accused; a chamber maid; the arrest itself not just aboard a departing plane at John F Kennedy Airport, but in the first class compartment of his own national airline, Air France; an identity parade and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Allegations of attempted rape, a criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment.

His arrest, the chamber maid’s allegations are each so devastating that the human mind races through every aspect of the awfulness to try to make sense of such power being brought so low even before a page of the Court register has been turned. From a $3,000 a night suite, to a limousine; to a plush first class seat and bowing French attentiveness, to the snap of American handcuffs; and the stench of a Harlem high security police cell.

Call me a doom monger – but we understate the perils of the Greek financial crisis at our peril. Every stock market in the world took a hit yesterday. The Asian markets caught a cold before we even woke up this morning.

A relatively obscure New York indicator – the Fear Index went toxic yesterday. It’s called the Vix Index, which measures ‘fear’ in the US stock market. It rose by more than 30 per cent, its biggest one-day jump since the height of the financial crisis in October 2008.

Look no further than the Portuguese stock market – which lost 5 per cent in yesterday’s Greek inspired fall – for the next domino in the line. Cross the Iberian peninsular and Spain continues to look worse than rocky. But for heavens sake don’t look too closely at Italy. My City sources tell me Italy is the one that would bring the entire Euro house of cards down. And where would that leave us? Don’t think Sterling would represent a comfy haven.

I sat for 90 shocking minutes in a briefing in a sweaty basement in the Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday as the young terriers who staff their research laid out the true scale of what faces everyone of us in Britain as we attempt the five year odyssey to pay off our own structural deficit. Yes, shocking stuff. Huge tax hikes and cuts in services are in the pipeline.

I have yet to attend one single news conference with any of the three major political parties challenging for power at which they did NOT offer yet another spending commitment. I can’t see the room any longer for the sheer size of this elephant – the unspoken, undescribed, uncosted (until yesterday) battle to save the British economy. We aren’t Portugal, Ireland, Spain or Italy. But crash them and we are beleaguered Britain. I used the word bankrupt of the UK economy the other night on Channel 4 News. It triggered much complaint. I withdraw it. But bankruptcy is in the eye of the beholder. And the stinkers who speculate and trade products that challenge national economies are out there. These sharks can yet crash the world economy in a way that leaves October 2008 a side show.

There’s to be a summit on May 10th to discuss Greece. I wonder if the sharks will wait that long. What a time to be looking for people to lead us away from the abyss!

I have just emerged from the World Bank offices in Millbank and an interview with its president, Robert Zoellick. He has a formidable intellect and interesting moustache.

He too had a flyer’s cold. I told him of the benefits of squirting saline water up your nasal passages in the morning and at night. He was grateful.

He says it’s not just the fear of protectionism, but the reality. He told me a number of states – 17 at least – have already enacted protectionist measures.

He said trading levels across the world had suffered the worst fall since the first world war. He wants the IMF to monitor the present fiscal stimuli, to report forcefully every quarter on what effect it’s having, and if it’s not enough then for the G20 to sign up to another burst of stimuli down the line.

He says it’s no more optimistic than he was six months ago and that “if the politicians get it right, they could see growth toward the end of 2009, early 2010.

“But if they make the wrong decisions tomorrow at the G20 summit, the effects could be felt for the next five or six years”.