I was pretty much right on my take that the Federal Reserve would choose not to raise rates yesterday. The U.S. economy is doing well, according to the statement, but rates will remain at zero due to worries about financial markets and the rest of the world. Waiting a bit longer has little downside compared with the risks of acting now—or so the Fed apparently believes.

The big news this week is the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting meeting tomorrow and Thursday. This is one of eight meetings held each year, approximately every six weeks. The remaining ones in 2015 are in October and December.

The reason this matters is because, once again, the Fed has to decide whether to start raising rates or not.

Last week was light on economic data, but it brought two important releases: one very good and one very bad.

Data last week was right in the middle of the fairway, to use a late-summer metaphor. We saw a weak print, a strong print, and a medium print, all of which, on balance, added up to a pretty good week for economic news, overall.

It seems appropriate to be talking about the August jobs report as we head into the Labor Day weekend. This report certainly has been a market mover so far today, but I’m not sure there’s much news here.  

August was the worst month for U.S. markets in more than three years, so say the headlines. I suspect it was also the worst month in at least that long for many international markets as well. And, as today’s numbers show us, we aren’t done yet. As I write this, U.S. markets are down about 2.5 percent, and European markets closed down around 3 percent.

Looking at today’s news, the lack of worrisome economic headlines is remarkable. Considering all that’s happened in the past couple of weeks—not to mention that markets are closing out their worst month in years—this seems to reinforce the idea that things here in the U.S. really are moving back to normal.

Now that things seem to have calmed down a bit, it’s a good time to discuss why the past week has been so turbulent. The usual explanations—the Chinese currency devaluation and stock market crash—are certainly valid, but there’s more to the story.

Let's take a closer look at the connection between the news from China and U.S. stock prices.

If you’ve been reading my posts over the past week, you’ve probably noticed a key theme: despite ongoing market turbulence, U.S. economic fundamentals remain strong.

Today’s data underlined that point again. Economic growth for the second quarter was revised up substantially, from 2.3 percent to 3.7 percent—not only above expectations, at 3.2 percent, but beyond the higher end of the range of estimates.

As the markets experienced significant declines on Monday after China sparked a global sell-off, I was on the phone with Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business Network's Varney & Co. Is the situation really as bad as it looks? Hear what I had to say.