The recovery here in the United States hasn't exactly been gangbusters, but on the bright side, it could be a lot worse. We could be in Europe. The unemployment rate throughout the European Union is up to 12 percent; a year ago, it was at 10.9 percent. The EU nation with the worst unemployment isn't Greece; it's Spain, at 26.3 percent.
The GDP for the Eurozone as a whole contracted by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, which was its worst figure since dropping by 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009. The European economy has now contracted in five straight quarters, which puts it in full-blown recession.
Even the strongest economies have begun to shrink - Germany's GDP fell by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, and France's by 0.3 percent. And these figures predate the crisis in Cyprus. If that island nation ends up exiting the Euro, there's no telling what that could mean for the larger economy.
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