Nuclear Waste = Delayed Recession

MSNBC has just updated its Adversity Index, which uses data on employment, business growth, and housing prices to label each state and metro area as expanding, at risk of recession, in recession, or recovering. The most recent data (through February 2009) in their economic downturn-ometer indicates that the recession reached 367 of the nation's 381 metro areas and 47 out of 50 states. But good news: Olympia--while still in a recession since January--hasn't been hit too hard due to being a state capital chockful of government employees. And then there's this: "the Kennewick-Pasco-Richland metro area has only now joined the recession, thanks to a resource that will pay glowing dividends for thousands of years: nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project and the Cold War." Um, three cheers for Hanford?