After years and years of hearing every Thursday about the number of initial unemployment claims the week before, I heard the figures for last week when they were released at 8:30 this morning. The number was very good, a multi-year low. But no one cares. The stock market is set for another major dive today; as I write this the futures show that the Dow will open about 150 points lower than yesterday's close. The world economy is in turmoil. Commodity prices are gyrating with moves that many would have thought unlikely just a month ago. Europe is most likely in a recession. Japan never seems to get out of a recession. China is moving from rapid growth to something much slower, and it could easily move into recession as well. And then there's America. Our economy should have bounced back after the big recession in 2008-2009, but the policies followed by the Obama administration prevented any strong recovery. That means that right now, as the rest of the world slips into recession, the USA does not have the built up economic strength to prevent our economy from taking a major hit as well. On top of this, the various central banks of the world are out of weapons to use against an economic slowdown. After all, once interest rates are near zero, they can't go any lower.
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