Your tireless reporter tried to get a comment out of Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of Pacific Investment Management Co. on his recent comments regarding the natural rate of unemployment.

Mr. El-Erian is quoted by Bloomberg thusly:

We are in the midst of a large and protracted increase in both actual unemployment and its natural rate. It will take at least a couple of years for joblessness to fall to 7 percent from 9.7 percent now."

Both he and Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps are cited as having speculated that the natural rate of unemployment would be 7 percent after the economy gets back on its feet. This struck my little commoner's State U-educated brain as odd. The only way the natural rate of unemployment could rise that high would be if long-term aggregate output were to fall drastically.

It sounds so nice: "The natural rate of unemployment." What it means is the percentage of people expected to be unemployed during a healthy economy. It includes people moving to different states or simply transitioning, as well as those whose lines of work are expected to lead to occasional periods of unemployment such as actors or ski lift operators. It used to be less than five percent. Now it is expected to be seven percent?

Far be it from me to doubt such erudite economic minds as Mr. El-Erian's and Professor Phelps', and I'm not doubting them. But this scares me. Back of the envelope (and my envelope is notoriously correct) says that a drop in long-term aggregate output that large might be expected if a superflu wiped out 10 percent of the population. It is in no way, shape, or form "natural" for 7 percent of the people who want to work to find themselves unable to work.

Remember that just a few years ago, the unemployment rate -- forget the natural rate of unemployment -- was around 4.5 percent. A new natural rate of 7 percent strikes me as only possible in an absolutely catastrophic economic scenario.

So I e-mailed PIMCO asking for clarification from Mr. El-Erian on two points: Did he actually state that the natural rate of unemployment would become 7 percent (The quote in the Bloomberg piece does not say that) and, if so, by what means does he see aggregate output dropping so dramatically. Stupid me -- I halfway expected a response. Guys like that don't even know that guys like me exist. We're just numbers to them.