the short of it is: yes the media here are hyping it.
in new zealand anyway, we are not looking bad. here we have relieved the international debt over the past 10 or so years to a point where the government can easily afford to pump $7B or so into the economy over the next 2 years.
that equates to 3% growth. guaranteed for the forecast recession.
in respect to the current 'economic crisis'; to adapt the words of our former prime minister David Lange, from his immortal speech affirming the moot of the 1985 oxford union debate that nuclear weapons are immoral:
"We in New Zealand, you know, like to be able to relax a bit, to be able to think that we will sit comfortably while the rest of the world seared, singed, withered. We're enraptured!"
suck it.