Investors are finally turning away from their TV sets and the hostilities in Iraq and facing the lingering horror at home of a dismal American economy. Wall Street futures and overseas markets are down Wednesday, foreshadowing a sluggish day on equities markets in North America.

Overnight, Tokyo’s Nikkei Stock Average fell 73.8 points, or 0.91%, last night to 8,057.61. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index plummeted 169.81 points, or 1.9%, to 8,636.85.

In London, the FTSE 100 index has slipped 0.59% by midday. Frankfurt’s DAX has fallen 0.87%. Paris’s CAC 40 is down 0.83%.

A delegation of 75 prominent Canadian CEOs that went to Washington to soothe tension over Canada’s stand on the invasion of Iraq have had their worries assuaged. While America is our largest trading partner, the reverse is also true.

One Pentagon official is suggesting that Ottawa better ante up with a contribution to Iraqi reconstruction before Canadian companies can expect to get a share of the action. But since the U.S. and U.K. are now saying the U.N. and the Iraqi people should be in charge of post-war Iraq, it’s difficult to see how that threat would be realized.

Meanwhile the International Monetary Fund is meeting in Washington. The IMF has lowered its economic forecasts for the global economy, as well as prospects for growth in the U.S. and Canada.

In Canada, there’s more good news. Statistics Canada is reporting that retail sales of all major commodity groups were up in 2002 compared with 2001. For the second straight year, the increase in sales of health and personal care products outstripped all other categories. Across all commodities, consumers spent a total of $307.5 billion in retail stores in 2002, up 6.0%, compared with the 4.4% annual increase in 2001.