The present economic crisis is that much more difficult to bear than any old crisis because it is so hard to tell how bad it will get and how long it will take. Such things are anyone’s guesses, or so it seems. The work of two economists of renown, Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, who looked into fourteen “severe” banking crises to date, is thus most welcome (“Drastic Times,” January 10, 2009). Pardon my simplifications, but here is a summary of their peak-to-trough guidelines for cumulative changes applied to the present crisis: house prices will drop by a third over five years; equity prices will drop by a half over three years; unemployment will jump by a tenth over five years; and total output per person will drop by a tenth over two years. Phew! Drastic as these changes undoubtedly are, they are at least tangible. They at least give us some bearings. At this stage in the crisis, that is surely a godsend.