February Melange.

2-10-09 SHORT HILLS: We have had an amusé bouche of spring over the weekend with temps in the fifties and some melting down of the snow cover which then froze into an ice sheet covering the yard. Our January, and Vermont’s, was below normal for temperature, and I felt it. Nevertheless we go to Vermont later this week with Alison, Anna and Lily and some assortment of friends of each of them.

President Obama’s ability to communicate and captivate an audience was again demonstrated in his town meeting in Elkhart, IN and at his press conference yesterday. One of the questioners at the press conference was from the HuffPo—a sign of the evolution of the media.

How would you describe the behavior of the Republicans in Congress? Obstructionist? Dog-in-the-manger? Suicidal? Homicidal? They are like one of those crazy shooters who take a school hostage, kill a bunch of people and then kill themselves. Well, only about 20 months until the 2010 midterm elections.

Rachel Maddow presented a comparison of the depth and duration of unemployment in the current and last two recessions on her MSNBC show last night. The data and graph are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


The blue line shows the drop in employment, 1.5 million jobs, and recovery, 32 months, during the 1990 recession.
The red line shows the bigger drop in employment, 2.7 million jobs, and longer recovery time, 48 months, following the 9/11 attack.
The green line shows the drop in employment in the current recession to date.
Scary?