First there’s the stunning news that JPMorgan Chase is going to earn $2.1 billion in the first quarter. I seem to remember all kinds of bad news coming out of that firm only five minutes ago, with bad bonuses and big, steaming bailouts and now here they are back on their feet again and doing fine. Can total recovery of the entire finance sector be far behind? 

Then there’s the unexpectedly terrific news that initial jobless claims careened downward by 53,000 over last month’s number, bringing those who were decruited during that time to only about 610,000. That’s way less than everybody expected. I bet that means the total number of jobless now filing for unemployment to dip below 6,000,000 really soon! While that may upset a lot of the nice people on Wall Street who feast on the concept of managing headcount, a few less jobless sucking hose water might actually help the economy, right? 

Finally, there’s the news that Martha Stewart’s new contract gives her a bump from $900,000 per year to a base of $2,000,000. She also got a retention bonus of $3 million. I think that’s a very encouraging sign. The last time Martha was doing well, so were we. Think about that for a minute. 

There are a lot of idiots out there who see every glass as half empty. Me, I’m the kind of idiot who sees it as half full. In this case, it’s full of a nice, frosty mojito served with Martha’s very own mulled mint. Bottoms up!