jim tankersley reads, was con tabling yug catastrophe? greg, why do you say that this was a good week? >> maybe i wanted to be positive for a change, penguin. if you look at the job numbers we had, they are positive numbers. 120,000 new jobs created. three months in a row now north of the 100,000 mark. this is the best train of job creation we've had since the string time. we should see sustained declines in the unemployment rate. is it a barnburner? no. considering five months ago there was a debate about whether we were going back into recession, i'd say pretty good. the decline in the unemployment rate, 8.6% from 9%, a very big drop. not all that meets the eye, though. part of that drop was because some people stopped looking for work. but it shouldn't overshadow the good news. black friday sales apparently were very good. factory activity is pretty good. most importantly, on the policy front we're seeing movement on some of the riskiest areas. here in the united states, talk about extending the payroll tax cut. in china, there using b