Rough year for sure. Perhaps one silver lining is for Roth conversion at the market low.

I for one would be sorely tempted by guaranteed 5% returns. I once new someone who told me that during the Volcker era she bought very long term fixed income securities of some kind (CDs? Treasurys?) that paid a double-digit rate of interest and enjoyed that for many years, when all other returns were paltry.

@hank : to go along with my above comment, checkout Salt & Pepper or vice a verse a @ WSJ 9/27

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cost the global economy $2.8 trillion in lost output by the end of next year—and even more if a severe winter leads to energy rationing in Europe—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday.
The estimate by the Paris-based club of advanced economies lays bare the magnitude of the economic fallout from the biggest military conflict on the continent since World War II. Russia’s attack has sparked a surge in energy prices that has weakened household spending and undermined business confidence, particularly in Europe.
Western governments fear that Russia’s order of a partial mobilization and its preparations to annex swaths of Ukraine could prolong the conflict for many months, perhaps years, further fueling the uncertainty now weighing on the global economy.
The OECD expects the eurozone economy to grow by just 0.3% in 2023, with Germany’s economy set to contract by 0.7%. When it last released forecasts in June, the research body expected to see growth of 1.6% in the eurozone and 1.7% in Germany.
The OECD warned that Europe’s economy could suffer an even sharper downturn if energy prices were to rise again. Should natural-gas prices rise by 50% over the remainder of the year, European economic growth could be 1.3 percentage points lower in 2023, while the global economy would grow by just 1.7%.
Such a surge in prices could arise if Europe faces energy shortages over the coming winter, driven by particularly low temperatures. To reduce that risk, the OECD estimates that energy consumption will need to fall by between 10% and 15% compared with recent years.
The cost of supporting households and businesses is pushing government debts higher, and that has led to an increase in borrowing costs that may further weaken growth. To avoid further big rises in debt, the OECD said that help should be targeted at the most vulnerable households.
It estimates that the 35 governments whose policies it tracks have committed to spending roughly $150 billion on broad-based measures to keep prices down through December of this year, compared with around $15 billion on more targeted price measures.
The OECD lowered its forecast for U.S. economic growth in 2023 to 0.5% from 1.2% previously, but said a steeper slowdown is possible if inflation doesn’t fall as rapidly as the Federal Reserve hopes.
The organization expects China’s economy to rebound modestly in 2023 from sluggish growth in 2022 that reflects lockdowns to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. In June, the OECD forecast growth of 4.4% in 2022, but now expects to see an expansion of just 3.2%. For 2023, it projects growth of 4.7%.
“The forecast for this year is for the lowest growth since the 1970s, with the exception of the pandemic,” said the OECD. “Next year, we expect growth that is still significantly lower than has been registered in China for a long time.”

I'm wondering if the employment/unemployment picture is becoming fragmented. There are many reports of large layoffs in businesses and financial operations which are large-scale operations. But, as Crash mentions, not so much in smaller local businesses, largely retail, restaurant, and other "service" type jobs.
I'm guessing that the overall employment picture may be more complex than is generally being reported. It may be that the reporting mechanisms were not designed to accurately reflect the situation that we have right now, and therefore don't give us sufficient granularity.

The economy is weakening, big companies from Ford to Facebook’s parent are cutting jobs or freezing hiring and inflation is eating into household budgets. Yet for many small-business owners, finding workers is as difficult as ever.
More than one-third of small businesses said hiring challenges had worsened in the three months ended Sept. 1, according to a Goldman Sachs survey of nearly 1,500 small-business owners. Forty-seven percent of them said finding and retaining qualified employees was the most significant problem small businesses faced, up from 43% in the survey released in June.
Nearly 60% of small companies report that worker shortages are affecting their ability to operate at full capacity, according to a September survey of more than 725 small-business owners.
Nearly 80% of small-business owners said they have increased wages and compensation in response to hiring challenges, according to the survey, and another 11% plan to do so. In addition, 60% of small businesses have refined their recruiting strategies, while 46% have boosted employee benefits.
Some small-business owners say they see the job market easing at the margins. William Duff Jr., founder and managing principal of William Duff Architects Inc. in San Francisco, said the firm is getting more applications for junior-level jobs that require six to seven years of experience or less. Senior architects are harder to find, he said. The 30-person firm, which struggled most of the year to fill job openings, handed out raises at the start of the year and again in the summer.
Boudreau Pipeline Corp., based in Corona, Calif., says it has turned down more than $13 million in work this year, roughly 22% of the amount it has been awarded, because it doesn’t have enough staff. The roughly 350-person company installs underground utilities, water, sewer and storm drains.
“It’s frustrating,” said the company’s president, Alan Boudreau, who figures he could easily employ 50 more people. The company has boosted wages by 22% over the past two years and added three in-house recruiters. It offers hiring bonuses of as much as $2,500 and retention bonuses of up to $5,000, provided workers stay at least one year. In early 2021, the company boosted referral bonuses to as much as $1,500, up from $150 four years ago. Referrals are the best source of new hires, Mr. Boudreau said.
In August, Vladimir Gendelman eliminated college-degree requirements from all job positions at his Company Folders Inc., a Pontiac, Mich., maker of custom presentation folders, binders and envelopes. He came up with the idea after promoting his executive-assistant to a job as print project manager, though she didn’t have any skills or training in printing, prepress or graphic design.
“We realized we don’t need an education,” he said. “We need somebody who is learning on their own, somebody who can figure things out.”