i was joined earlier from new york by mort zuckerman and steve forbes, chairman and ceo of forbes, incorporated. gentlemen, thank you both very much. i can't think of two better people to talk about the business climate right now. so let me just start by quoting ben bernanke, the chairman of the fed, as you well know, who called the state of the economy unusually uncertain. so i'd like to ask the two of you to give me your description of where you think the economy is right now. mr. zuckerman? >> well, i'm more or less on the pessimistic side of things. my view is that you have consumer spending, which is either flat or going down, housing, which is falling off the edge of the cliff, employment, which is still continuing to be a serious problem, and i could give you a whole series of statistics that sort of fit into that general group of either flat or down. and that's what leads me to the conclusion that this economy is getting weak. you have to understand that this is after the better part of two