Maybe China's leaders —currently embroiled in a complex leadership transition — should worry less about politics at the moment, and more about economics.

The latest numbers out of Beijing today are anemic, particularly on the domestic economy. 

Here are two key stats to consider:

Growth in April exports fell to 4.9 percent measured year-on-year, down from a growth rate of 8.9 percent in March.

That's not too surprising, considering China's close trade ties with Europe, which is in the midst of a severe economic slump. After all, it's hard for the Chinese to sell stuff to Europeans who don't have money to spend.

But the more troubling figure has to do with imports in China, which rose just 0.3 percent year-to-year. That's the lowest number since October 2009, when the world was reeling from the global economic crisis.

Moreover, analysts were expecting a much larger gain of 11 percent, so the sharp slowdown at home is telling.

Here's what Alistair Thornton, China economist at IHS Global Insight in Beijing told Reuters in classic econo-speak:

"We know the external climate is not particularly conducive to strong export growth and digging into the data you can see primarily it is a euro zone story, which is to be expected. But the headline number on import growth is less expected and more worrying. It does point to a real weakness in the domestic economy and shows that we have not yet turned the corner into a sustained recovery."

And, as the New York Times points out this morning in a wide-ranging and smart analysis, demand is slowing for iron ore, semiconductors and other goods.

“The business environment is getting tougher and tougher,” Tom Zhang, the sales manager at Hebei Haihao High Pressure Flange and Pipe Fitting Group told the New York Times. “Competition is very intense to get more business — our domestic sales are down from last year, though our export sales are more or less stable.”

So why does this matter?

In today's Wall Street Journal, journalist Charles Forelle has an excellent analysis of the grim options facing the euro zone and Greece, since Sunday's elections piled political crisis on top of its debt crisis.

Forelle explains why monetary divorce, which looks increasingly likely, would be terribly messy for both sides. He foresees not only investors but also foreign businesses fleeing Europe's periphery if they fear that contracts would be fulfilled in devalued local currencies rather than euros. In other words, a Greek withdrawal could trigger not just the kind of financial panic that we saw in 2008-2009, but a broader systemic panic. He also cites sources who argue that markets have not yet priced in the gravity of the dilemma. 

Still, if the ragbag of leaders that Greece elected rushes to jilt the troika, abandon austerity and flee the euro zone, Forelle points out that this course of action is hardly going to endear them with voters in the short term:

Need to know:
Ron Paul plans to take another whack at the Fed today.

The federal committee he chairs is scheduled to consider his Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act and several other bills that aim to alter the course of the US central bank.

The Fed so far has been able to heartily withstand Paul’s attempts to topple it, but Paul has been able to get the Fed’s books audited and gotten Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to reveal that he does his own grocery shopping.

Bernanke meanwhile may remain a lonesome dove on the Fed board a while longer. President Barack Obama’s latest nominees to join Bernanke on the board will have to face so many hurdles to get approved that the Senate may just give up on them, Reuters reported.

Want to know:
The US may actually have made money in April for the first time in a very long time.

We’ll have have to wait until the official numbers come out on Thursday. But for now, the Congressional Budget Office is expecting the government last month generated its first surplus is nearly four years.

A profit wouldn’t exactly mean the US has turned a big economic corner, though. Much of April’s gains are attributed to timing and the US still isn’t yet expected to break its streak of $1 trillion annual deficits.

Dull but important:
Spain has its own too big to fail problem. Spain plans to spend billions of euros to bail out its third largest bank, Financial Times reported.

Bankia is struggling under the weight of bad real estate loans as Spain battles its second recession in three years. The bank could need up to $13 billion to weather the euro zone crisis, but it’s not clear how the government might finance a bailout, Reuters said.

Bankia, which used to be seven smaller banks until a series of a mergers a few years ago, poses the biggest risk to the Spanish banking sector, according to the IMF.

Meanwhile newly elected leaders in Greek parliament still are struggling to form a ruling coalition and talk that Greece could be forced out of the euro zone is growing. 

Just because:
The euro zone may have problems, but India's could be worse, according to one economist.  

While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to help American retailers like Wal-Mart gain new customers in India, American economist Tyler Cowen is worrying about just how much the country’s economy has slowed down.

Even though India’s economy still is growing faster than the US economy, its having a disproportionately negative effect on the poor, he wrote in The New York Times.

If India's economy doesn't pick of steam, another generation of millions of Indians may fail to rise out of extreme poverty, according to Cowen. 

Strange but true:
Mark Zuckerberg won't wear a suit for Wall Street, not even for Facebook’s big IPO.

Need to know:
European voters have had enough of government budget cutbacks. 

Voters in France and Greece ousted leaders pushing government spending cuts and instead picked candidates who are against the austerity measures being criticized for holding back a European recovery.

Francois Hollande won the French presidency from Nicolas Sarkozy while Greece's dominant political parties failed to win enough votes in Sunday's election to form a ruling coalition.

Greek voters embrace of anti-bailout parliamentary candidates is increasing worries that Greece won't commit to the budget cuts it needs to make to stay in the euro zone.

The elections were essentially referendums on current European economic policy and their outcomes could be the best thing for the euro zone, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times. "It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing," Krugman wrote

Want to know:
Romania already is planning to ease up on at least one of the austerity measures it implemented in 2010.

Romania has convinced the International Monetary Fund to allow it to begin raising public sector wages and run a higher budget deficit than a bailout deal it made with the IMF would dictate, Reuters reported.

Romania is the European Union’s second poorest member. It cut public sector wages by 25 percent, and things haven’t gone well.

Romanians have been staging violent protests against austerity measures like spending cuts and tax hikes, and the Romanian government has already collapsed twice this year.

Dull but important:
Australia’s strong dollar may be getting in the way of its growth.

Australia’s central bank cut its growth forecast, saying a strong Australian dollar was hurting the country’s exports. The value of Australia’s dollar has risen an estimated 70 percent since 2008, making its exports far more expensive to the rest of the world.

It's a particularly big problem for Australia because it is the world’s largest exporter of iron ore and coal.

Just because:
Warren Buffett held his annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Neb., this weekend where he worked hard to reassure investors that both he and his Berkshire Hathaway were going to be ok.

Buffett revealed Berkshire Hathaway has got $20 billion or so to throw around for a good investment and said that he might want to buy a few more newspapers. He also told investors not to focus on share prices too much because the stock market sometimes acts like a “psychotic drunk,” the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Omaha World-Herald said.

Berkshire Hathaway stock has been underperforming the market for the past few years but that hasn't stopped thousands of investors from making an annual trip to Omaha. 

Shareholders are allowed four passes to the meeting, which draws thousands has become something of a Woodstock capitalists. In case you’re curious, buying one share of Berkshire Hathaway stock to get in will set you back about $122,000.

Strange but true:
Attention wealthy travelers, you can now have a drink with Sir Richard Branson on his Virgin Atlantic airlines — at least until he melts.