Recessionary times are all about relativity. Beancounters take a look at the biz climate and decide just how big of a hit the organization is going to take. We estimate that sales will be off 20 percent from the same period last year—that's how the exercise goes.

And that number isn't even worthy of an exclamation point, in large part because it's pretty much consistent with other pubs, as the Washington Post's Frank Ahrens points out in his comprehensive run-down of the company's money misfortunes: "By comparison, first-quarter ad revenue decreased 28 percent at the New York Times and 34 percent at [...]

Washington Post biz reporter Frank Ahrens these days is Twittering the stock market, which has got to be a simultaneously exciting and baffling assignment. I've been watching the markets on and off for many years now, and each time I read a sum-up of the markets' "logic," I affix my hands to the sides of [...]