A Dedication

It's 8.15 p.m (EST) -- do you know where your job went? Hmm... neither does this guy.

Oh, now don't look so glum, you still got your health (though, certainly not your health insurance) -- says University of North Carolina-Greensboro economist Christopher J. Ruhm, speaking, methinks, like a man who has a job studying people with no job.

But hey, good news, even if your syphilis has broken out once again (and whose hasn't??), Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Jack Guynn has some solid advice that you can take all the way to the [read: his] bank:

"It's still a bit early to declare that everything is well and back on track but I think the fundamentals are still solid and will continue to improve," Guynn said in a phone interview with Reuters.

The regional Fed bank chief, who rotated into a voting seat on the central bank's policy-setting panel this year, said worries over a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq were not the only factor restraining economic activity.

"I think it clearly is an important factor but just how big I don't think anybody knows," he said. "I look forward to getting beyond that and getting a better view of some of the other fundamentals of the economy."

Guynn said the U.S. economy would likely be growing around an annual rate of 2.75 percent to 3 percent by the end of the year, and that the jobless rate could rise for several months before it begins to fall.

Sniff... sniff.. That smell, it . . . it . . . smells so familiar. If it looks like shit and it smells like shit, there's a good chance . . .

[Dedicated to Crak]