Global markets swallowed deeply overnight, and suddenly the international financial edifice looks tottery this morning.

I blame the snows of January and February, and December in Europe, the UK and the US. That’s the easy way out.

If the stuff hadn’t fallen in such record amounts in those areas in the past three months (at varying times, including another monster storm around New York today), then US home starts, home sales, UK retail sales, European fourth quarter growth and perhaps confidence (not to mention US consumer confidence) and US jobless claims, might not have all surprised us on the downside.

The markets shuffled, hustled and decided that being in the red was safer than being positive and in the black. The sell-off started in Australia and Japan yesterday afternoon, and the rest of the world followed us down.

Then again, I could also lump in the Greeks and their “rubbery” accounting of debt, not to mention their pig-headedness in understanding their predicament (Just as Barney Joyce here pig-headedly fails to understand the strength of Australia’s position).

The demonstrations overnight didn’t help matters, nor did comments by a senior politician claiming Germany stole from Greece in the Second World War and never repaid what it took. Seeing any bailout of Greece from the EU will be underwritten by Germany and its millions of “thieves” it was a rare example of the political genus, Grecian thickheads.

Then again you could rope in the rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, for pushing Greece and the eurozone closer to the edge of some sort of debt debacle by issuing ill-timed warnings about how they could drop Greece’s credit rating to the point where it could have difficulty.

But what about those ingratiates in Iceland. Confronted with demands to repay billions of dollars owning to savers in Holland and the UK, not only have they said no, but walked away from the talks to try and settle the matter. Why, if Iceland was large enough, and important enough, we’d be talking about the Icelandic debt crisis and not the Grecian money mire.

It’s enough to lower the credibility rating of those rating agencies that they can’t punish Iceland any more. Its bottoming out, sort of.

And what about Fed chairman Ben Bernanke revealing overnight that the central bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission were taking a close look at the way Goldman Sachs (AKA Squidus Vampirus) helped Greece hide the true level of debt and the budget deficit nine years or so ago through swap arrangements then OK, but now banned? Retrospective regulating is always tough when you want to be seen to “doing something” populist.

And, of course, we can’t forget Italy; in a class of its own, almost Grecian in nature. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is railing against a police state as police and prosecutors pursue close friends, personally and politically, over allegations of voting fraud, financial wrongdoing and being close to the Mafia. The PM is back in court tomorrow in Milan on a long-running bribery charge that he thought he had legislated away, but some annoying judges rejected the legislation and ordered the case back to court.

And then there’s claims that Telecom Italia, one of Italy’s biggest companies and in fact the fifth largest Telco in Europe, has had to postpone its financial results because police are investigating a record €2 billion money-laundering fraud at a couple of key subsidiaries. So serious are the claims that the company has had to suspend the release of financial results until some can tell it what is happening. The police want to take control of two subsidiaries at the centre of the claims, one of which is called Sparkle.

The mind boggles. Only in Italy could money laundering be linked to a company called Sparkle.

And we must not forget the real economy where the nascent recovery seems to have struck a hump or two, or, more accurately, hit an icy patch in a snow-covered economy or three or more.

US employment and durable-goods orders missed forecasts. Jobless claims role sharply last week in the US, hitting the highest level in three months and ending the declining trend. Earlier in the week we had a record low number of new house sales, plus an unexpectedly softening in new home starts. But retail sales in January were OK, because, it seems the snows were not as deep as they have been (and at the moment) this month.

In Europe, confidence in the economy dropped unexpectedly after growth in the euro almost stalled in the fourth quarter. The European Commission’s index of executive and consumer sentiment fell instead of rising as expected. Cold weather, indifferent orders and the snows of December and early January across the north of the continent have been fingered.

In the UK, the snows of December were blamed for weaker-than-expected retail sales, but can you blame a white Christmas for a sharper than expected fourth-quarter fall in business investment in Britain. That’s more to do with business confidence about the future. Still the dumb comment of the day goes to the Greek politician and his Nazi jibe at Germany. As one unnamed banker told a reporter: ”How can they call the Germans incompetent Nazis and still expect a bailout?”.

While I can still blame the snow,  (as would Tony, Joe and Barney, or rather the Government for being responsible), that would be the easy option.

Things are suddenly looking serious, much more than they did 10 days ago.

Consider this, if a few big dumps of snow, plus days of cold weather and a bit of ice can slow the US, European and UK economies, how weak must be the underlying level of demand and output? Very weak is the answer, enough to perhaps suggest the recovery is a statistical illusion?