Readers will be forgiven for not feeling like the economy is in recovery─American trade is down, unemployment is nearing 10 percent (closer to 20 in some parts of the country, if you count people who’ve stopped looking for work), and housing foreclosures are higher this year than last. Yet the global economy recovery is upon us, according to the number crunchers. The IMF just raised their projections for global growth to 2.5 percent from 2 percent─the first upward tick since the crisis began.

What’s really interesting to me is that U.S. is actually leading the recovery, in part off the back of our corporate profits, which are at record highs, despite the financial crisis. Of course, this again might not feel great to most folks. Why should bankers at “Golden Sachs” be taking home loot again so soon after a bailout? Yet the fact that at least some of the big banks appear to be back on their feet is actually good news for the larger economy. And in many ways, it speaks to how much better American policymakers handled this crisis than their European counterparts, despite stumbles along the way. Europeans are still doing stimulus in dribs and drabs and hoping the whole problem will go away.

Unfortunately for them, things will likely get worse in Europe before they get better. I spoke today with Chris Willliamson, chief economist for Markit, a global financial market research firm, who told me that rates of economic decline in Germany, Italy, and Spain are still comparable to the post 9/11 period. Things are not stabilizing in these countries─Spain is in the midst of a real-estate crash, Italy is risking sovereign default, and German consumers have their wallets zipped up tight, thanks to the fact that their big export businesses are in major decline. The French are holding steady, but only just. The entire eurozone is flat, as the U.S. and U.K. move ahead.

This is just the opposite of what folks were predicting six months ago. So much for the triumph of the Continental model of capitalism.

For more on the shape of the recovery in the U.S. and the rest of the world, check out our packages in next week's print editions.

SOURCE: JONES LANG LASALLE

Alexander F. Yuan/AP
At a Chinese auto show. 

when a little-known Chinese company agreed to purchase Hummer from General Motors in June, the deal was initially seen as another symbol of a rising China's might. But recent murmurs from Beijing suggest that authorities might nix the acquisition by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery; state media are reporting that Hummer's environment-crushing reputation doesn't fit with China's new drive to go green. Yet environmental concerns are just a public excuse. According to officials, Beijing's real worries are much more hard-nosed: Should Tengzhong fail to restructure the ailing SUV maker, it would damage China's image in the international marketplace. And Beijing has good reason to believe some of its domestic auto companies aren't ready to drive a foreign brand. The eager buyer is unknown even in China, and its expertise lies mainly in dump trucks and cement mixers. The past is sobering: when China's biggest carmaker, SAIC, bought a stake in South Korea's Ssangyong Motor Co. in 2004, it ran afoul of Korean labor unions, which obstructed the hoped-for turnaround. Foreign assets are "hard to digest," says Eduardo Morcillo, an M&A expert with InterChina Consulting. Still, Ssangyong was barely known outside Asia. Failing with an international brand like Hummer would cause far sharper stomach pains.