Ground Floor: Did we just see two swallows flying over the United States economy? Unexpectedly (look, I know a few years ago I told you that nothing was really unexpected in markets but it seems that everything is unexpected these days) unemployment fell from 6 per cent to 5.7 per cent in the States in January.

It's still a far cry from the sub 4 per cent levels of a few years ago but a fall is a fall and nobody is getting too picky about it. The 143,000 increase in non-farm payrolls was double the original forecast, in contrast to a December's decline of around 100,000.

So the question people are asking is - beginning of summer or just another blip? I'm in two minds myself because the war scenario is still affecting the perception of the US economy and so it's hard to make a definitive judgment until the Iraq situation is resolved.

Besides, we're only talking about one month's numbers and (as we've seen on many previous occasions) they can be revised at the drop of a hat. Most of the jobs have come in the retail sector which makes me wonder whether or not the stores didn't do their hiring for the sales period rather than the ultimately disappointing Christmas rush.

One area where there isn't much hiring going on is in financial services where there have been more people leaving firms than joining them.

The shaky state of equity markets has meant continued outflows from both stocks themselves as held by individual investors, and US mutual funds.

Last year was the first in 14 that there was a net outflow from equity funds, to the tune of about $27 billion. This is not good for the fund managers who are usually paid a percentage of the size of fund they manage. And as further regulations for the management of funds and dissemination of information are put in place, more and more fund managers themselves are wondering whether its worth the effort.

Thing is, those managers like to think of themselves as, if not Masters of the Universe, certainly people with an in-depth knowledge and vast awareness of the market and all its complexities. Too much regulation, too many different things that you can and can't do, limits the sense of authority of the fund manager and makes each decision less personal and more trammelled by a pre-determined set of rules. Which means that the role could just as easily be carried out by a less well paid person and a computer programme.

It's not only the fund managers themselves, it's also the analysts. After the slew of high-profile conflict of interest cases in the States, many former stars are now without jobs (though still holding onto the cash they made in the nineties). And in the UK, we're seeing a lot of them walk too. In the last couple of weeks a number of well-known City analysts have left their jobs to pursue "other interests" although in these cases it's less to do with conflict of interest and more to do with falling bonuses. Basically more rules and less money equals a less attractive job.

One of the discussions that my former colleagues and I used to have when we were feeling depressed about our places in the whole scheme of things was that, working in finance, you didn't feel as though you were producing very much. Sure, you were bringing in income for the firm and, yes, you could say that in raising funds for a company you were helping it to build and grow for the future, but you never had anything tangible in your hand at the end of the day.

Years and years ago when I did some work placement in a manufacturing company, I remember standing in the warehouse full of garage doors and thinking "we made those and we've got to sell them". There is something undoubtedly satisfying about having a real live product to look at at the end of the day. So I'm hoping that all those analysts and fund managers who've decided to pursue other interests find the right interest to pursue even if they find real manufacturing a far cry from just talking about it.

Meanwhile, the decision of the Bank of England to cut interest rates has cheered the manufacturing sector in the UK even if it's left the economic gurus sucking in their cheeks and walking around the place with mildly worried frowns. The bank's cut was yet another surprise for markets, taking rates to their lowest level in half a century. The rationale, according to the bank, is weakening demand but the economists are still worried about the bubbling house market. The general view is that this is a pre-emptive strike to get the economy moving, but it's not without risks with inflation above its target level. However, since the main risk is of pushing share prices higher and since markets have shown themselves to be extremely resistant to the very idea right now, maybe it's not quite as scary as it could be.

The ECB, of course, is doing nothing scary at all. Maybe that's scary enough in itself. Wim Duisenberg said that there were "economic uncertainties" which impacted on the ECB's decision not to cut rates. Another blinding light for the European bankers. The euro has increased in value by about 7 per cent since the ECB's cut in December which has all but negated the impact of that reduction. So it wouldn't be a major leap of faith to cut rates again.

Whatever about house-price bubbles in Ireland, the rest of Europe continues to flounder - manufacturing in Germany, for example, showed its biggest fall in December in more than seven years.

After years of riding along in the gravy train, I suppose most of the world's businesses and financiers are now having to roll up their sleeves and work that much harder.

The bad times always sort out the wheat from the chaff. Looks like the last decade was all chaff. I hope things are changing.