Not surprisingly, markets are ugly today. Pretty much everywhere.

In Japan, the Nikkei ended down over 2%.

German stocks are down over 1%. Same with Spain.

Italian stocks are down nearly 2%.

US futures are down a bit less than 1%.

Over the weekend there were two major developments. One is it looks virtually certain that the US government is going to shut down. There appears to be no chance, right now, that the GOP-controlled Congress can pass a budget that doesn't contain a defunding or delaying of Obamacare, which is obviously something the White House would never accept. So that's not a positive.

And then in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's party has announced its deserting the government's coalition, forcing Prime Minister Enrico Letta into a confidence vote later this week, which he might lose possibly throwing the country into political chaos.

And to top that all off, Chinese official PMI last night was weaker than expected.