A good morning to thumb through the papers, what with the drenching rain making it look almost like night. Dreary, indeed, are some of the signs:

First, we saw the creation of half the number of new jobs that were predicted just one month ago (of course, the stock market went UP initially when that news came out because fewer jobs may be bad for workers but it makes the market makers happy because when workers have less to spend, inflation remains low).

Second, on the other hand, oil prices reached a record level, scaring the beejeezus out of the very market speculators. In fact, higher oil prices are probably influencing job creations: if you’re paying higher prices for energy to run your company, there is less money to use to hire workers. Bingo—another reason to move to alternative fuels as an energy strategy as the Apollo Alliance advocates.

Third, as the Financial Times points out in a front page story today, there is tremendous weakness in the economies of Europe and Japan, which is a bad thing for the U.S. economy for two connected reasons. If the economies are weak abroad, no one is going to want to buy U.S. products—unless the dollar is pushed even lower. That would in turn be trouble for the U.S. which would have to push interest rates higher because of the big trade gap—those foreign investors need some incentive to buy U.S. treasuries to help us finance the trade deficit.

Overall, not a pretty picture. Add on to that the huge personal debt American consumers are carrying, I don’t know how things don’t get worse for the average worker.