In a message dated 98-04-13 11:11:08 EDT, you write:

> Moreover, when even a mild a recession starts, people immediately cancel
>  contracts and stop payment on checks to their lawyers and architects, and
>  concentrate on basic things like buying food and paying the rent.

Early on when I decided, or was chosen, to go the trade route I was told a
story about a stonemason during the depression who would visit this one
wealthy estate where he would secretly knock over some stonework and then come
back the next week and ask the property owner if they needed it put back
together. The moral to the story, I assume, is that a stonemason can always
find work.

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