Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen government spending drop considerably as a percentage of the economy as a whole. But is it set for a comeback?

Today's big financial and economic news is that the European banking system is in better condition than many had thought.

An extensive review by the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority was completed on Sunday. It concluded that, of the 130 large banks reviewed, only 25 were below the standards at the end of 2013; of those, 12 have since raised enough capital to get out of the danger zone.

One way to get ahead of trends, in my opinion, is to take basic assumptions that everyone just knows are true and think about what the world would be like if, in fact, those assumptions turned out to be wrong. 

Since returning from the Goldman Sachs conference yesterday, I’ve been thinking about what was said there—as well as what wasn't so much said as assumed.

Looking at the data over the past few days, it’s apparent that the economy continues to improve. Consumer comfort is rising, initial jobless claims are up a bit but remain at extremely low levels, job openings are at multiyear highs . . . the list goes on and on.

I am currently attending a Goldman Sachs conference, and I was struck by one key point made by the agenda: The U.S. is still the center of the world. 

And he woke up, and it was all a dream.

With a six-year-old son, I admit I’ve been forced to end stories in that way on more than one occasion, when I get stuck and run out of ideas (or energy). Looking at the market today, though, the events of last week have certainly taken on a dreamlike quality. What just happened?

We’ve seen a market downdraft, a bounce back up, and now . . . what next? This is the big question everyone’s asking.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve said again and again that the U.S. is in good shape economically, and that the problems rattling the markets are coming from elsewhere in the world. Today, let’s take a closer look at where we stand, and why I think we're well positioned to ride out any market turmoil.

Once again, the winds of market turbulence are starting to blow. Once again, barometers (and stock prices) are dropping. Once again, we wonder why we ever thought it was a good idea to invest in stocks.

Apart from the stock market—and we got a break on that front yesterday—the big story lately has been falling oil prices.

Not to minimize the market’s losses, but from a long-term perspective, the oil price decline over the past month is the more important story by far, both for the U.S. economy and for the world.