Ouch! The Employment Cost Index rose 1.4% last month. On top of that, consumer spending soared 8.3% last quarter and estimated GDP growth came in a fat-but-less-than-expected 5.4%. In March, durable goods orders rose 2.6%, personal income was up 0.7%, and consumer spending rose 0.5%....I'm not sure "booming economy" comes close to describing this. It could've been ugly, but the market took it in stride. The big tech stocks are hanging in there. But I'll bet that Alan Greenspan is very unhappy with all of those numbers, particularly employment costs and spending. Has the stock market dropped enough that he'll hold the next interest rate increase to 0.25%? We'll know in 2 weeks.

The plummeting Euro is worrisome. The European Central Bank mumbles, bumbles, and fumbles along, with it leaders' confusing statements destroying confidence. They keep raising interest rates, as they did this week by 0.25%, but that won't fix it. To paraphrase Pogo, they haven't seen the enemy, but it is them.