The Oracle of Omaha Speaks

By Dian Vujovich

Big crowd at the 12:05 Ash Wednesday service at Bethesda-by-the-Sea yesterday. With almost all the pews filled. It looked like a Sunday attendance.

That noon service is typically a well-attended one but yesterday’s audience exceeded the expected crowd of 125. I figure by at least 100.

Word from a St. Edward’s Catholic Church observer was their services were also “well-attended.”

“Well attended” must be common church lingo for “good crowd.”

A Gallup poll report last year showed that church attendance hadn’t spiked across America in light of the economic downturn. But it was taken before the news of Madoff and other scandals hit, the markets’ big-time falls, all the bailouts, our country’s super-fast rising national debt and reports of the millions upon millions of people without work. Based on yesterday’s local church attendance, looks like that info is as out of touch as the Dow at 14,000.

Read the rest of the story at
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/20/business/0222-pay-graphic.html?ref=business and weep.