Is there no good news in the world? There's precious little in this thread.

[Alex]

I don't know. But average hourly wage is up ($16.49) from the last time national unemployment was lower (4.7% now, 4.6% in 2001) so it can't be too much a case of $100,000 computer engineers becomeing $21,000 Starbucks baristas.

My experience here locally is that the job market is very strong in the professional fields I'm looking at with lots of the local tech companies trying to expand workforces.

And again, considering that even when unemployment was at its worst in the last five years (about 6.3%) that is still much lower than during most of the '80s and early '90s. Still constitutes good news, I'd think. But if you want to find the bad news I'd watch Paul Krugman at the New York Times. He can always be counted on to find the bad side of good news.