I, for one, am reassured

And lo, the village elder, whose smallest utterances have the power to reweave or unravel the economic filament that binds our world together, did light the special incense, consult his chicken entrails, and declare...

“We’ll see the recession coming to an end probably this year.”

With those words, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke staked a marker on what he believes will be the end of the malaise that has descended upon the United States economy. And, he said on a “60 Minutes” interview that ran Sunday evening, the country will begin to recover next year — “and it will pick up steam over time.”

So the recession might be coming to an end. Maybe this year, maybe next. He thinks. Probably. But don't hold him to it I was especially fond of the part where, in one breath, Bernanke says the recession will most likely end in 2009, but that it's impossible to predict what will happen.

Always in motion, the future is...