What informs our opinion..

1. The rise and fall of the shadow banking system
2. Stocks have nowhere to go but down
3. Interesting read on opportunities in clean-tech
4. Oil after sleepwalking for more than a year, is stretching it’s muscles
5. The US relative decline, 24 statistics to confirm it

As a note to the latter (#5) link, the figures about manufacturing decline are overplaying the panic. Normal productivity growth will reduce the percentage of people working in manufacturing and could add to the decline of manufacturing as a percentage of output as well (for the same reason, the lack of productivity growth automatically boost the relative size of the public sector).