I'm wondering if you can describe the book you're reading.

Is it a door stop, basically?

Yeah, you feel the weight of it.

You feel the weight of history on your lap as you read it.

Jordan Weissman covers the economy for slate.

So when I asked him what he did over the Memorial Day weekend, and he said, oh, I'm reading

a 900-page book about the Great Depression.

It cringed a little.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody will be shocked about why I've decided it's a good

time to read about the 1930s again.

We're facing the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.

Officially, it's 14.7%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has actually suggested it could be closer to 19 or 20% because

of a data collection error when they were gathering on those statistics.

So the numbers are really bad, but actually they're probably worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually in some ways, that too reminds me of the Great Depression because, you know,

back then, they didn't really have modern economic statistics.

And so they had to try to combat a crisis while they only had a hazy idea of just how awful

it was.

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