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The most important letter in the global economy right now. What do you think? Any guesses?

From American public media. This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai. Rizdole is Tuesday today, the 20th of June. Good as always to have you along.

Everybody, we begin today with the letter R. R for rates and R for recession.

The global story on interest rates is fairly well established by now. I do believe central banks in most developed economies have been raising rates as they try and try to get inflation under control.

Yes, the Federal Reserve skipped this past meeting, but there are more rate hikes coming. The Bank of England and the European Central Bank are raising a pace.

And so though the people's bank of China, which this morning cut its key rates as the second biggest economy on the planet slows just a little bit.

And that intern gets us to our word number two recession and when and whether to be clear, one might be headed our way.

But as we know, this is a global economy and what's happening elsewhere in the world is going to affect what happens here.

So in that light, Marketplace is a little bit Jamali gets us going here in the US. We really want the rest of the world to stay out of recession says University of Michigan, Betsy Stevenson.

That makes it really easy for us to sell the things that we are best at creating around the globe.

But all is not well around the globe. New Zealand for starters has slipped into a recession. That probably won't cause big impacts here at home says C.I.B.C.'s Bippen Rye.

The economy is as relatively small compared to some of the other developed markets out there.

But he says some of the factors that put New Zealand in that position are familiar. Inflation and central bank efforts to beat it back by raising interest rates.

Inflation's tipped Germany into recession two says I.N.G. chief economist Karsten Brzeski.

I energy prices high food prices have put a weight on private consumption.

Then there's the elephant in the room when it comes to global recession talk China. Wait, is China in a recession?

We don't know. If you trust Chinese statistics, maybe.

George Washington University's Susan Ariel Aaronson says this much about China is clear.

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