1930 or 1974?

Why choose between the two painful eras when we can have both simultaneously? The following two articles were in the top ten most read on MarketWatch today (the first was #1 and the second was #6).

CORRECT: U.S. stocks sink; GM falls nearly 11%

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks fell sharply Thursday with the blue-chip index enduring its worst June so far since 1930, and plunging to its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006, after getting slammed hard as crude soared to new highs and Goldman Sachs disparaged U.S. brokers and advised selling General Motors Corp.

Toyota weighing first broad price hike since 1974

The automaker is considering a plan that would amount to the first across-the-board price hike since 1974, at what was then the height of the previous oil crisis, the Nikkei newspaper reported, citing an unidentified senior Toyota official.

One foot goes in the liquid nitrogen. The other foot goes in the molten lava. We're still doing well on average though.

Oh well, at least the country isn't a dust bowl.

Floods will cause ripple, not ruin, across US economy

Any idea that this year's corn crop would yield the bounty needed to ease already short supplies is gone. Corn prices have increased by more than 80 percent in the past year on demand overseas and to fuel ethanol plants, contributing to global food-price inflation at a time of rapid economic growth in China, India and other developing nations.

We're fine as long as nobody does the math and/or the math is only done by Wall Street analysts on our behalf.

Farmers whose fields are under water are starting to do their own math.

Oh oh.