John... Look, the fog's lifting.

History suggests that recessions are often renamed when the smoke clears.

When the veil of bubbles lifts every morning, we can actually see a community from the Pelagic ocean, one of the only places on Earth you can see giant bluefin swim by.

Perhaps today the smoke will clear a bit faster if we dump the Great Recession label immediately and replace it with something more apt, like Great Contraction.

Other countries, such as Ireland, Britain, and the US, started with a much stronger fiscal position, but may not be much better off when the smoke clears.

When the veil of bubbles lifts every morning, we can actually see a community from the Pelagic ocean, one of the only places on Earth you can see giant bluefin swim by.

NEW YORK It has become popular to suggest that when the dust settles from the global financial crisis, it may become clear that the United States led post war world has come to an end.

As Netanyahu s statements suggested, the Israelis have some serious concerns if the basic equation remains after all land for peace, just who will their interlocutors be after the dust has settled in the Arab world?

But, while the dust has not yet settled after months of turmoil in Tunis, Cairo, and elsewhere, the Arab revolts have already had a massive impact on the strategic structure of the Middle East.

Is science or society well served by a fixation on prizes and on nurturing a culture of extreme competition? Perhaps once the mystery of the Nobel Prize is reduced, we might reflect on what is truly significant in science.

Until the dust settles on the new Middle East, the old roadmaps seem dated, and conventional wisdom holds that progress toward a peace agreement in the face of regional upheaval is wishful thinking.

In the short run, the best approach is to follow Wolfensohn s advice, give the dust a chance to settle in Palestine, and await the outcome of Israel s election later this month.

Just when the smoke from Turkey s domestic political conflicts of the past year had begun to clear, another deadly attack by Kurdish separatists on Turkish soldiers has the government threatening military attacks inside northern Iraq.

When shocks to the system occur, agents do not know what will happen next. In the face of this uncertainty, they do not readjust their spending instead, they refrain from spending until the mists clear, sending the economy into a tailspin.