This Is Not a Repeat of Last Week (and the Week Before Last, Etc.)
The global economy appears to be in freefall, withAsian marketsdropping more than 2% and the Euro dropping to four-year lows against everything. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy seems to be on the mend, finally, but also nobody really believes this, in their hearts, and unemployment is stillofficiallyat 9.9% -- the real rate is more than 17% --and one-in-five American menare jobless today and will never again have full-time work in America. And California will be the "Next Greece." Also don't sell yourwife's diamond ring on Craigslist because crazy/desperate people will come to your house and murder you. U.S. Treasury SecretaryTimothy Geithnersays it's all going to be fine, Europe will fix its own problems, you can totally trust him on this, etc. [ Marketwatch / Bloomberg / NYT ]TheBP Oil Spillis likely ten times bigger than BP's estimates, and there are 10-mile-long "oil plumes" underwater, and nobody really has an accurate idea of what's happening except for the deep-sea robots, who aren't talking. But BP says its third attempt to stem the crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at least worked a little bit. The Obama Administration was all, "Yeah that is not a solution, shut up." [ Business Week / NPR ]
Britain's two busiest airports are shut down, again, because ofthe volcano, which is never ever going to quit erupting. [ BBC News ]