At some point, bad economic news out of Europe seems to have become a fact of life. The sun still rises in the east, water still flows downhill, and the European fiscal/economic situation is still awful.  It’s been like watching a car wreck in slow motion over the past three years. Yesterday brought a new bit of bad news with Spain’s IBEX 35 index closing below the lows of 2008, setting a new 9-year low. Did someone forget to tell Spain the ’08 financial crisis was over?  Or is this a sign that it never really ended?

Time will tell if Spain’s “Running of the Bear” (not to mention Greece, and Italy, and Portugal) represents their own little world in terms of problems – or whether their break below the 2008 lows presages similar moves in the Euro currency first and foremost, the rest of Europe’s stock markets (looking at you, London and Berlin), and eventually the US markets, energy prices, and all the rest. If no amount of stimulus can save Spain (or Greece, or Italy, or Portugal), what does that mean for the rest of the world that has been living on a steady diet of stimulus for the past 4 years?