From US News…

Media reports suggest Senate Republicans have become a key focus of stimulus talks, an acknowledgement that they appear to hold the balance of power in that chamber despite having only 41 seats to the Democrats’ 58. The Washington Post reports on the front page that Senate Democratic leaders “conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.” Moderate Republicans are “trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion.”

This is not really a Republican vs Democratic thing. Rather it is an east and west coast against middle American thing. Still, I am surprised that Democrats could not hold together long enough to pass this law.

Edit: If this is true, Obama may just be using the Republicans as a stick to clean up some of the junk he does not like in the bill. (h/t The Common Room)

We will start off easy….

The ruble slumped to its weakest level against the dollar in 11 years as investors speculated Russia will be forced to give up its currency defense after draining reserves.

One should note that Russia has not drained its reserves yet. The market is just beginning to anticipate that they will be drained. Then what?

Now it is time to panic…..

Every week it gets worse and worse and worse. Today it was Japan….

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN DATA THIS BAD FOR ANY MAJOR ECONOMY – EVEN IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION. December industrial production came in down 9.6%, worse than the METI forecast. It is now down almost 21% year over year. METI forecasts a further 4.7% decline in February. The inventory to production ratio soared again. Maybe METI will be correct.

If it is, Japan industrial production will have fallen 28% (non annualized) in four months. It will have fallen by a third in about a year. Nothing in the history of major nations compares. A 28% decline in four months would be more than half of the entire decline in U.S. industrial production over the 3 years and nine months of the U.S. Great Depression.

As far as the chaos goes, this will have to do….

Relativity minor so far, but this kind of thing is going to grow as economic problems get worse. It is going to test the EU’s ability to hold together.

As far as these particular strikes are concerned, they are going to get a lot worse in the week ahead. A story to watch.