Equities fell off a cliff, page-6

Yeah tend to agree AJ.
I think the oil thing is really oversupply, but yes an element of weakened global demand.
The biggest issue is debt levels in a deflationary world.
i.e. we shouldn't fear deflation, if we didn't have elevated debt levels.
Those debt levels were grown against much higher asset prices, so to repay that debt of much lower asset values becomes a lot more difficult. The value of things drop, mean while debt rises.
Its a bit like your house prices dropping, when you haven't kept up your mortgage repayments.
Suddenly debt to asset ratios blow out.
Well in this case its debt to GDP.

There is certainly an element of fear returned to the markets in the last week or so.
Sure the US is growing, but Europe & Japan are both still cactus.
China is in control of commodity prices pretty much as the egos of Western companies has played into their hands.

As always, interesting times.