Patience is a virtue right? We’ve been waiting for the recovery to kick in, demand to pick up. But May has not been an upbeat time. What’s happening is not subtle and should be particularly unsettling, especially on the international scene.

Let’s start with Europe. Nothing good is going on there. Greece is headed down and possibly out of the Eurozone, but the real worry is Spain—nearly 25% unemployment in the region’s fourth largest economy. The price tag is too high for a comfortable bail out and the country’s banks have begun to teeter with no way out from once lending housing markets into an oblivion of unsustainable price run-ups and overbuilding (sound familiar?). France wants to do stimulus, but where is the money coming from? The Germans have no appetite to lend more—they understandably think any new infusions will go right down a sink hole. And across the channel the austerity-minded UK is already back in recession essentially thanks to using too little stimulus.

Then let’s cut across to the other side of the world and examine China. For all the hype, I’ve never been convinced that the Chinese could sustain its growth. The big construction binge in housing and infrastructure has now entered a hangover mode of excess capacity. And many of the workers on these projects have now been sidelined. Manufacturing also slows down—China’s big customers in Europe and the U.S. have lost some of their appetites for consuming Asian imports in the economic drag. The experts had been expecting the growing Chinese middle class to pick up the buying slack if the export markets sagged. But if Chinese workers aren’t making as much or not working at all that may not happen. And the ordinary Chinese are becoming more and more aware of how the capitalist deck has been stacked against them by the government and military elites, who cream most of the gains. That results in more under currents of discontent. And don’t forget the one child policy which is quickly disrupting the country’s demographics—China is ageing rapidly with too many frustrated Generation Y single men without enough Generation Y single women. Next door nuclear Pakistan and India are always at each other’s throats with Islamic fundamentalists just a step away from taking over Pakistan and Afghanistan (once we leave). Then look at Japan—in population decline and shaken from nuclear calamity, the world’s third largest economy continues its two decade long slide, which will inevitably continue.