Bottom Lines Columnist Jim Kershner’s Take On The News

Operation Dollar Storm

The U.S. mounted a surprise rescue effort for the weak dollar on Wednesday. Jimmy Carter was called in to negotiate, in a last ditch effort to forestall massive Federal Reserve air strikes on the yen and mark.

Economic news is so fascinating

Don’t you just love economic news? It makes the situation in Bosnia seem so calm and easy to understand.

Somewhere in the middle is good

Here’s all you have to know about the dollar situation: The dollar is extremely weak, which is the worst thing it could be, except too strong.

Wall Street is so skittish

This weak dollar is so bad that Wall Street reacted with typical panic by surging to a record high on Wednesday and Thursday. Oh, help, the sky is falling

But then on Friday, a drop in factory orders raised new recession fears, which marks the 18,000th straight day that somebody has worried about a recession.

We want a soft landing, or maybe an ejection seat

This signals the possibility of a serious economic downturn, which is the worst thing that could happen, except a serious economic upturn, which might cause inflation or gas or something.

Those economists are a cheerful bunch

But we don’t have to worry about that right now. All we have to worry about is the return of the Great Depression, although by next week economists will have found something else to worry about, such as the widening trade gap with Kuala Lumpur.

The Siskel, Ebert and Dole Show

The only other big news last week was that Sen. Bob Dole attacked Hollywood for making depraved movies such as “Natural Born Killers,” “True Romance,” and anything produced by Sen. Phil Gramm’s former brother-inlaw.

We need more of this from Hollywood

On the other hand, Dole likes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “True Lies.” I think you’ll agree: We need to encourage more wholesome American movies in which Jamie Lee Curtis does a bump and grind.

, DataTimes MEMO: Jim Kershner’s Bottom Lines appears Mondays on the Opinion page.