A stretch of bad luck

(Obama, looking at the falling American economy — source)

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all 'right-thinking people'. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as 'bad luck'."
— Robert Heinlein, science fiction writer


“We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again. But over the last six months we’ve had a run of bad luck.”
— Barack Obama, science fiction president

[via Istapundit through arbat]