Reading the Signs

If you and your circle of acquaintance are still gainfully employed (and be happy, very happy, if you travel in such a fortunate circle) how can you discern that we are in the early stages of an historically significant economic slowdown? What are the physical manifestations of a recession? Here’s one: the copy of Wired I bought when starting out my travel day is fully 50% thinner than the one I bought on my last trip (I tend to only read Wired on airplanes).

What other visible signifiers are there? In the long run, Paul Krugman provides a depressing theory as to what will end this slump – the eventual decay of our physical infrastructure will become so extensive that the effort involved in replacing it will initiate recovery.