The WSJ had a good set of charts today on the slowdown in Europe. Their charts are below or you can go to their site at www.wsj.com but you will need a current subscription.
You can see the slowdown of manufacturing into negative (contraction) territory on the left and the persistent rise in unemployment on the right. It is not a pretty picture and I don’t see signs of reversal yet. I do think the European Central Bank will announce a rate cut this week but dropping rates from 1% to 0.5% if they do that much probably won’t significantly change how much corporations are going to borrow to invest in growth.