The Way We Live Now: Celebrating the infallibility of economics. Why doesn't the mainstream media inform you of the upside of this recession? For every drawback, there's a draw-forward. You don't see everyone taking sick days any more, do you?

Look, workers are taking fewer sick days than in any year since 1987! The system works!

Well, yes, granted, everything is a tradeoff. "To be sure," as they say, there is somewhat of a downside. There's not enough Medicaid money for the states, and Chinese wage changes are about to raise the price of everything in the entire world, and gold prices are skyrocketing as gold bugs worldwide stockpile gold to make gold bullets to kill the post-apocalyptic zombie race that can only be killed by gold, and Boston is thinking of putting restaurants inside public restrooms, which just goes to show that you still can't expect Boston to a god damn thing right, which is too bad because this country needs every last person to pitch and help avert disaster.

Then again, bidding wars have broken out in the New York City luxury housing market once again, which could be interpreted as a good sign if the person doing the interpreting is in the real estate sale business.

So, like we said, it's up and down, a mixed bag, positive and negative, but with a decidedly positive tilt on the "calling in sick to work" issue. And a success for management is a success for everyone, provided they have very good health insurance. Which they do, yea?

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