These days, the economy is probably the last thing many people want to read about, because it is making so much news and almost none of it is good. Confronting the reality of such widespread material lack as we are currently seeing is daunting, and as analysts clog the airwaves and the blogosphere with endless torrents of statistics, numbers, and abstractions to which most people can't even relate, it's easy to run in the opposite direction whenever the opportunity presents…