On today's Planet Money:
-- U.S. unemployment hit 8.1 percent in February — unless you count the underemployed, too, in which case it's 14.8. Economist Howard Rosen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics takes your questions about the real picture, COBRA, and which industries might be hit next.
-- Look, the economy is bad. It's even very bad. But if you gaze across the span of history, says economist Ken Rogoff of Harvard, this particular crisis starts to seem not so unusual after all. Rogoff talks about the ideas behind his paper, "This Time Is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises."
-- And seriously, the economy could be verse. That's what Planet Money editor Jonathan Kern tells us, in his villanelle for the economic crisis.
Bonus: After the jump, extra questions and answers from Howard Rosen, plus the full text of "Villanelle for Uncertain Times" by Jonathan Kern.
Thanks to everyone who sent us questions about employment over Twitter. Howard Rosen took more than we could use on the podcast. I've collected extras in the MP3 below.
@AndiVanderKolk's, included below, wins the prize for question from which I personally learned the most.
Howard Rosen's bonus Twitter questions:
Villanelle for Uncertain Times
Though banks are suffering a lack of liquidity
And teeter on the edge of nationalization,
Do not succumb to economic stupidity.
Though Congress is demanding more rapidity
And tugs the strings behind the Administration,
Keep at bay financial rigidity.
The credit markets all crave liquidity
And Wall Streeters contemplate defenestration.
Do not succumb to economic stupidity.
While Keynsians say the budget reeks of tepidity
And scorn what's left of privatization,
Keep at bay financial rigidity.
Zealots always demand philosophical solidity.
Hasty action always trumps contemplation.
Do not succumb to economic stupidity.
Human nature involves some cupidity.
Self interest is the market's salvation.
Keep at bay financial rigidity.
Do not succumb to economic stupidity.
-- Jonathan Kern
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