Drip, drip, drip

The Christian Science Monitor offers a dire headline this morning, South's ill-timed drought may further crimp US economy.
The newspaper reports:

[H]ow the South responds to the improbably dry weather may affect the broader US economy, since the region's booming metro areas and job growth have so far fended off a national recession.
"The coincidence of having [potential] recession plus drought is a tough one for the economy," says Jeff Humphreys, an economist at the University of Georgia in Athens. "It's coming on top of the housing recession and the oil price shock, making our economy more vulnerable than would otherwise be the case. I don't think the drought alone is able to produce a recession, but it adds to negative forces that are already out there."

For an equally depressing picture of the parched American West, National Geographc's latest edition has a story.