Tracking the Trendy Jobless Rate

Like most RealMoney.com writers, I feel a sense of community and a personal bond with readers. Many of you have taken time out of your lives to email me with your comments and concerns, an effort always reciprocated. In light of last week's terrible tragedies, incomprehensible in the true sense of the word, I'd like to borrow some words from Abraham Lincoln speaking after the Battle of Gettysburg and return them to you with a measure of prayer:

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is to those great heroes of the World Trade Center, the police officers and firefighters who gave, in Lincoln's words, the last full measure of devotion, that I dedicate myself below. ...