Yahoo Finance is reporting that the 1st Quarter profits of UPS are down 55% as revenue dropped 13%, compared to a year ago.

The results missed Wall Street expectations, and UPS provided an outlook for second-quarter earnings that was below analysts expectations. UPS shares fell.

"Clearly, these are extraordinary times," Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn told analysts in a conference call.

The first-quarter profit was 40 cents a share, compared to year-ago earnings of 87 cents a share.

I would expect that things will continue to slowly spiral downward as the recession and the deflation we are now experiencing continues to deepen. The only positive here is that the falling volumes will further reduce our demand for imported oil.

Rival FedEx Corp. also has been facing financial headwinds from the weak economy. In March, the Memphis, Tenn.-based company said it would cut more jobs and trim wages again, after reporting its fiscal third-quarter profit tumbled 75 percent on sliding revenue. Earlier this month, FedEx said it would permanently remove 14 jets from service as part of an overall plan to reduce capacity.

Economists and analysts consider FedEx and UPS to be bellwethers of the global economy, since they deal with such basic indicators of company health as orders and product shipments.

Overall, this is just more bad news on a steaming pile of crappy news.