Joe,

Our friend Endre Barath, Jr. wrote about this yesterday.  The China issue send Wall Street spinning in the last two weeks, and I think we have more faith in the Chinese government than we do in Greece's government.  I think that many of us were not surprised.  Since so much of our focus is luxury, we were seeing signs 2 years ago in that industry as everyone was rushing to open mega stores in China.  Now, many wish they had not.  

I think we are all affected by any country in some aspect of the economy.  And gas prices are way up again, and the Fed is wavering on raising interest rates here.  A

It's definitely a bigger problem, but I see China as a "too big to fail".  Just as our Fed has manipulated global markets to avoid a depression here (although they haven't figured out how to improve beyond stagnation it seems), I think China is in a position to shake up the rest of the world....I'm not sure anyone wants to see that, though - the implications are pretty scary.

Thank you Ron and Alexandra Seigel  yes it is a big concern and the implications have not really been absorbed by most people....not wanting to sound negative but this could trigger not a US but a Global Recession, Endre

Hi Joe - in my market, what is happening in China has a much bigger impact than Greece.   

Hi Joe.  For the most part people think they "know" Greece where as China is about as foreign to us as the planet Pluto.  We know they're there we just don't know much about them.  The difference between Greece and Europe and the US (in my opinion) is that Americans are worker bees, it's in our DNA.  Europeans are to some extent but not as driven as us and the Greeks are living in the past drinking their wine by the seashore and exporting and contributing nothing to the rest of the world except the beauty of their surroundings.

Do you REALLY want to know the immense power China has over the USA.

Do you REALLY want to know that without CHINA we have no DEFENSE resources? (rare earths)

Do you REALLY want to know that CHINA can make our allies dance like puppets through their rogue nation alliances.

Do you REALLY want to know that the USA can not influence China in any way? 

The concern is when oppressive states experience economic woes, they go to war with somebody to bolster their domestic image, have someone to blame and stimulate their economy.

The problem is, this is old news. We have long ago lost the battle regarding influencing China, and no longer merits a headline.

Yes, it is a concern, but do you really want to know?

Greece affects Europe which uses more US goods and has a dorect affect on our econimy. China buys far fewer US goods, when their economy goes down, oil use declines, prices go down and the goods they make, prices could go down. Unless China ground to a halt, then our sticks may not sway much. One affect could be less investment in US and therefore higher interest rates if money is harder to get for US banks and companies. 

Wall Street is playing the small investors like fiddles right now. Too much market volatility.

The news media can only handle so many top stories at one time.  Currently, it's Greece. 

Good Tuesday morning Joe. The whole world's economy is one huge float. I think everybody is just trying to keep the one domino falling.