The unemployment picture took on an even more ominous tone this week as new layoffs emphatically underscored a worsening global economy.  Now, fear is rising that the losses represent a major restructuring in the business world and that some, if not most, of the jobs are gone forever.

Investing icon Jim Rogers and Australia’s Macquarie Funds Group have teamed up to create an agricultural-commodities index that will help investors profit from shifting patterns of food consumption in the burgeoning market of Mainland China.

The Macquarie and Rogers China Agriculture Index is an investable index that will track price changes of the market “basket” of the agricultural commodities most commonly consumed in China. Macquarie Funds is the asset management arm of Australia’s Macquarie Group.

Macquarie actually created the product in November, and continued to operate it in December, when the China agricultural index posted a return of better than 11% – outperforming most agricultural indices and handily besting most stock markets in that part of the world, Asian Investor reported. That provided Macquarie Funds…

Powered by the biggest German expansion in 12 years, the European economy shrugged off the U.S. slowdown to post first-quarter growth numbers ahead of analyst estimates.

As markets from equities to commodities succumb to ever-wilder mood swings, many private and institutional investors are, quite sensibly, hoarding cash.