The world economy is being held back by debt and bad investments. Personal Debt. Deceitful monetary practices by lenders or investors. (ie real estate brokers encouraging debt) Corporate Debt. Government Debt. (city, county, State, Country, etc) Economies based on sky-high commodity prices. (prices relative to cost of living and relative to debt) Commodity producers financed by lots of debt.<p>Basically, many people and entities have financed growth by massive debt. The US is now comparatively better and has reduced QE and increased interest rates. This has caused commodities to plunge. (minus the fear-buying precious metals) A strong US dollar and faltering global markets have caused commodities to sink. Oil producers continue to produce in hopes that they can continue to finance their debt obligations.<p>In my opinion, the economic outlook will get worse-- especially in domestic and international markets where shale oil and tar sand oil is produced. These resources are much more expensive to extract and refine than traditional oil wells. Once these economies fall further (corporate and personal forclosures), the economic outlook will worsen.<p>The biggest problem is investing in expensive resources, financed by large debts. 
This is why companies are socking money away at astounding rates- debt is crippling the global economy.