I See London, I See France ...

Now we all see Mr. Andrea Mitchell's underpants ...

News, in brief, so to speak ...

From Sam Stein;

As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan was known for using quirky, proletariat metrics to judge the temperature of the economy. The most famous of these, as recounted by NPR's Robert Krulwich in January 2008, were the sales of men's underwear. If the economic scales dipped even the slightest, Greenspan reasoned, it was as sure a sign as any that people were truly feeling the pinch.

"If you look at sales of male underpants it's just pretty much a flat line, it hardly ever changes," Krulwich recounted after the publishing of Greenspan's book, "The Age Of Turbulence." "But on those few occasions where it dips that means that men are so pinched that they are deciding not to replace underpants. And [Greenspan] said 'that is almost always a prescient, forward impression that here comes trouble.'"

Well, here comes trouble.

Yeah, trouble alright, especially when it comes to Greenspan.

He all but claimed he was on intravenous-delivered Ambien, saying he was "mystified" by the Sub Prime meltdown.

Stein reports that there is a 2.3% drop expected in the sale of Mens underwear products for 2009

I hope this doesn't mean we have to look forward to bailing out the underwear industry.

That, certainly, would be a cringe-inducing press conference.

For the good news;

Men's underwear is a replenishment item. If you see a dip in the market it is because of the economy. But over a longer-term period it will even out. They tend to be later going into the recession and earlier coming back... Men certainly aren't wearing underwear less frequently than before."

Phew!

Bonus Riffs

James Joyner: Greenspan’s Underpants

Digby: Boxers Or Briefs