here is my take. there have been very strong signs that the economy is weakening but everytime the bears gained traction,the consumer/jobs picture saved the day. now that the employment picture is gone i don't know how the bulls find a silver lining. I have been saying for 2 months that a few years from now we will all look back and say "damn,houing was getting killed,lending standards tightened up,credit card and home equity debt was through the roof,the dollar was very weak and oil hit 100 bucks a barrel. how the hell did anyone think we could avoid a recession"! i have a feeling we will be saying that in 2009 or 2010. if you look at all the data its just logical once you take out the noise and commentary from all the pumpers about exports by multi nationals. selling abroad can only do so much and after a while it no longer helps. kind of like productivity. don't get me wrong,we could bounce but i think the bias is definitely to the down. remember,the old high on the dow was 11,000 area.