The EU summit "deal" is noise; we knew going in there would be no "grand bargain" and there isn't.  Britain said "stuff it" (rightly so) along with a few others; those who went along did so pretty much at gunpoint.

The vassal state model may look attractive as an alternative to Mekosy, but they're nuts.  What they'll ultimately get out of this is a war.  Oh Archduke, is that you over there somewhere?

The internal issue for America is more-acute in the market sense.  Texas Instruments last night warned on weakening demand and got clocked in the aftermarket.  This morning Dupont issued a warning.  Either standing alone could be looked at as company-specific.  The two together cannot.

I said a bit over a year ago that PPI pressures would eventually filter through and hammer margins directly, and likely would result in cost-push pressures that ultimately would hurt the top line -- although perhaps not at the firms that had the cost pressures.  In other words the deteriorating standard of living would eventually have to show up somewhere -- "charge it" only works for a while.

It appears that it now is showing up.  This sucks, to be blunt, but it is very unlikely to be contained.