After speaking recently at the Economic Club of Marquette County, Michigan, I sat down with Don Ryan, host of The Ryan Report, for an in-depth interview on the markets and expectations for 2016.

One of the most interesting (and surprising) pieces of news on the economics front has been the Bank of Japan’s decision to take rates to negative levels—in other words, to charge depositors to keep their money in the bank. This is not an unprecedented move, as negative rates have been in place for a while in some European countries, but it’s still somewhat unusual.

In my latest Market Thoughts video, I discuss January's dismal market performance, which was the worst we’ve seen since the financial crisis. Why did it happen? Is it likely to get worse? And what can we do about it?

The first sentence of my market update for last January went like this: “U.S. stock markets dropped across the board in January, as investors reassessed their risk tolerances.” Sound familiar? I went on to note that the primary concerns were slow earnings growth, caused by weakness elsewhere in the world, and a strong dollar. Again, does that ring a bell?

Overall, last week’s data reflects an ongoing split in the U.S. economy, with consumers and the service sector doing well while manufacturing and industry continue to struggle. 

As expected, this morning’s GDP report wasn't cause for celebration. The initial estimate of economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year came in at 0.69 percent on an annualized basis—well below the previous quarter’s figure of 1.98 percent and even further below the fourth quarter of 2014, which posted growth of 2.07 percent.

As we discussed yesterday, a number of countries depend on oil money to keep their populations happy, and lower oil prices are threatening those governments’ legitimacy. They lost control over the pricing mechanism as free markets took over, spurred by new technology—in this case, fracking.

Following up on yesterday’s post, let’s take a look at what the oil price crash might mean for states in general. The problems in the Middle East and Africa are the most glaring, so we'll start there.

Overall, the effects of low oil prices here in the U.S. have been positive—very positive, in fact. In the rest of the world, this is even more true. China and Europe, for example, import much more energy as a proportion of their economies than we do, and the positive effects have been proportionately greater. Whatever troubles China and Europe are having, they would be much, much worse with higher oil prices.

There are, however, real costs of cheap oil.

This past week had a light data calendar, with prices and housing coming into focus. Let’s take a closer look.