The new jobs numbers show unemployment declining slightly from 9.2 to 9.1 percent, with the economy adding well over 100,000 jobs, the minimum needed to keep pace with population growth and prevent the rate rising. After such a massive stock market collapse this week, the numbers were badly needed to stanch the bleeding.

And yet despite some initial rebounds here and abroad, markets remain stuck in neutral — and S&P, threatening to downgrade the United States’ credit rating for some time, took the plunge Friday, an unprecedented development.