The winds of a global slowdown are blowing strong. Japanese numbers have been weak and the BOJ warned on Thursday that it expects Japanese growth to slow next year as some of the stimulus evaporates. The numbers out of Europe have been better than expected but only in the stronger economies; the peripheries remain weak. The PIIGS’s credit stress has eased somewhat as the Chinese purchase of Spanish debt helped provide some optimism. We point this out because it was the Chinese who decided against buying Greek debt in early December that began the real European debt crisis.