I see an economic diasater coming...

[the_big_m_in_ok]

This computer is also acting up, triffid.   I'll have to come back later.   You're right, though.   This sucks.
--Lee

I'll be specific:
       China is massing troops and tanks on the N. Korean border.   The N. Korean military has the go-ahead to use 'nuclear weapons.'   The U.S. is deplying stealth fighter to S. Korea.
       If this continues, it 'isn't going end well' by any stretch of the imagine, so to speak.
--Lee

[triffid]

Looks like I should have spelled Martyr correctly.I have some good news and some bad news  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/where-us-economy-hasnt-yet-134120098.html  triffid

[triffid]

Perhaps the best way to think about the U.S. economy is this: After five painful years, it's nearly back to where it started when the recession began. What's different now is that the trends are much healthier. Gone are the fears that the economy could fall into another recession.

[triffid]

— UNEMPLOYMENT RATE. When the recession began, unemployment was 5 percent. Now, it's 7.7 percent. Probably no figure better illustrates the downturn's lingering damage. The unemployment rate is well below the recession's peak of 10 percent in October 2009 but far above the 5 percent to 6 percent range associated with a healthy economy. Twelve million people are unemployed. Yet that figure doesn't include 2.6 million people without jobs who have stopped looking for one. An additional 8 million work part time but want full-time work. Combining all those groups, 22.6 million people are either unemployed or "underemployed." They represent an underemployment rate of 14.3 percent, down from a peak of 17.1 percent in April 2010.

[triffid]

— HOUSING. The housing market has been recovering for about a year but still hasn't reached normal levels. Previously occupied homes were sold in February at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 4.98 million. An annual rate of about 5.5 million would be healthy. In the recession, sales had bottomed at 3.8 million. And last month, builders began work on a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 917,000 homes. That's way up from a recession low of 478,000. But it's still far from a healthy annual rate of roughly 1.5 million. Prices have risen nearly 9 percent since bottoming in March 2012, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index, but they remain 29 percent below their pre-recession peak. Still, housing differs from other sectors: Its peaks occurred during a housing bubble that eventually burst. Few expect or even want prices to return to those levels soon. Most economists welcome the steady but modest growth housing has achieved in recent months.