This is from a piece i am writing for the Examiner. If you click on the link, I get something like two cents.
I have a buddy who's also my guru, the historian/poet Charles Potts, of Walla Walla, Washington. Thirty eight years ago he was driving through Minneapolis and found my name on a telephone pole -- advertising for a writers group. I was amazed at his fierce clarity then, and have been locked onto his visions ever since.
One of Charlie's more daunting visions is about the Big Nothing that has thrown so many of us out of work.
Arthur magazine recently asked Charlie for his thoughts on the economic meltdown. (Robert Reich has given up and is calling it the "Liverwurst sandwich.")
Charlie says there is reason to expect this trough to be very deep and last very long. He likens it to the cavity that enveloped Europe and America through most of the 19th century following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. (And no, I wasn't there to fact-check.)
That depression lasted 90 years. On the plus side, Potts says, inflation was non-existent.
The rest of the piece is here. It's part of a series of short pieces on Unemployment Nation, which I am doing for the Examiner.