Just Hang On, Recessionistas!

WHAT YOU WILL BE WEARING IN TWO QUARTERS Hobo Costume "Tell Us Your New Great Depression Stories," begs Gawker today. "What Happens When Gentrification Rolls Back," asks the New York Observer this morning, on the state of Brooklyn neighborhoods in this time of financial crisis. The media attention span is so short that we're all writing these stories before anything even really happens! (And it probably will.)

Meanwhile, venture capitalists like Fred Wilson and high-paid (okay, semi-high paid, to be fair!) media consultants like Jeff Jarvis have vowed on their Twitters that they are buying Apple and/or Google stock today! (GOOG up five points at 10:30 a.m.; AAPL up four! Ha, oh wait, GOOG down 6 at 11:30, AAPL only up 2. Heh.) The modern attention span is completely unsuited for a five or six quarter-long recession—and it's absolutely unprepared for a depression. Here is when you want to buy your stock, guys: when unemployment hits eight percent in two or three quarters. Here is when you want to buy a house: late this winter or even next summer. Here is when you want to share your stories about the New Great Depression: late 2009. The show—if there really is to be one, and maybe there won't be!—is only about to begin.