Well… I have to laugh at the surprise that has been coming out of some quarters in Europe that the economy there has slowed markedly over the past few months with the head of the IMF now saying the continent will go back into recession this year. What did they expect? When you slash spending and pay for workers, the result has always been slowing growth…just as Keynes postulated in his economic theories that have been so derided by the right here in the US. One of the things that everyone seems to be ignoring in the headlong rush to austerity across the globe is that you can never cut your way to growth….that cuts in spending and infrastructure investment will certainly mean years of slower growth instead of the robust growth that comes from deficit spending in a recession. I feel we have lost the ability to be objective in economics as the partisanship of politics and ideology have blinded us to what works in climbing out of recession…but, I think that is the aim of the repubs with their only stated goal over the last 3 years is to defeat Obama; no matter how much damage is done to the country…geez…