THE JOLLY ROGER OPTION
How long will it take the average U.S. household, whose net worth has declined 18 percent in this downturn, to recoup its losses? A spell, predicts Kerry Lunch of the straight-shooting American Institute for Economic Research.
After the 1972-74 bear market, notes Ms. Lynch, recovery from a 48 percent drop in stock values took eight years. It took three years for households' stock values to come back from the 38 percent drop inflicted by the dot.com bust of 1999-2002. This time, she says, "real-estate losses are adding to the decline."
Three years? Eight? More? The impatient may consider the fast-track, albeit risky, wealth-building strategy of the Somali pirates.
Save the males
Columnist Victor Davis Hanson:
"Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female.
"How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper? I watched 'Twelve O'Clock High' the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded like they were from another planet."