I started writing this letter to you, from Washington, on Saturday morning as broadcasters of every stripe were casting lanterns down the paths we might follow after consecutive days of so much jarring death in Paris and Beirut.
The Great Recession began in November, 2007. A person can toggle backward through charts and reports and find, sneering up at them, that two year gully now scarring American economic history. It's truly a cliff, one inverted peak in an exclusive class of terrifying American moments, dating back to Lincoln's time.