Clearly what we need are more tax cuts for the rich.

Does the unemployment percentage follow the same difference...? Yikes if so!

But at least it's a 'green' line.

So when do we stop calling it a recession, and start calling it the a Depression?

Realy kind of useless when making comparisons to a handful of recessions. I.e. it would help if the 1982 recession line was put in there to show that it is about equal to that, or would that go against the media fad of continual fear mongering current economic conditions? It's funny how the last part of FDR's quote is always hacked off;

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

This only says it's worse so far than the other two periods of layoffs in the last couple decades.

What about before then?

For a more sensible and complete comparison, see:
http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2008/12/the-recession-i.html

recession, my ass.

Shouldn't it chart the percentage of jobs lost, rather than the number? Otherwise it's not relative, right?

Kind of interesting-- when the economy's good, people bemoan the useless overproduction and overconsumption. When the econonmy's bad, they bemoan the lack of jobs.

Seriously, what percentage of the population would actually have to have a job to produce enough food, housing, clothing, etc, for the entire country? What happens when everyone else gets fired?

I think this can end up triggering some real changes in how the US works.

The obvious Great Depression/New Deal comparison aside, as well as the well-known fiddling with statistical definitions the fact still remains:

Low unemployment has been perhaps the greatest success of the US economy, compared to Europe. And the biggest argument against having European-style worker-protections, unions, etc.

Of course, the US conservatives always compare themselves to France. Since a) They hate the French and b) France has relatively high unemployment and a lot of strikes. (You don't often see comparisons to say, Sweden, which has relatively little of both.)

Hang in there, my fellow happy mutants. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

@4: after it lasted a few year at least.
During the Great Depression (everything awful was deemed 'Great' in those years wasn't it?) the unemployment reached 25%, the salaries of those still at work fell by 40%, the total economic output of the US dropped to half of what it was and it lasted until the start of WWII in Europe when the US started to become the weapon manufacturer of the World.

The conditions are different this time: we can laugh and criticize the different salvage and stimulus programs but they will cushion the fall, maybe even slow it down to a plateau that won't be as catastrophic as it has been 80 years ago... until the next crisis that is, IMHO.

As long as the fact that it is the capitalist system itself that is at fault is not recognized we will remain in deep shit.

have to name it sooner later:

-The Cheney Depression
-The Bush Legacy Depression
-The Grand Old Depression
-The "This Is What Comes From Not Shooting Limbaugh Through The Head Ten Years Ago" Depression

shall we have a contest?

First of all, let me say that the job numbers are really bad. Second of all, so is the methodology of this chart.

First, growing population means more people, which means more people lose their jobs. Would you compare job loss numbers between this recession and one from 1809? No. Because population changed! A chart showing percent change or percent of the workforce would be much better as this compares apples to oranges.

Second, this is comparing the current situation to two fairly mild recessions in recent history. Two recessions that everyone already realizes were not as severe as our current one. There have been many other recessions between the Great Depression and now.

These numbers look to be about as bad as what we saw in the 1982 recession and what we saw in the mid-seventies. Of course, the trajectory of these numbers hints that we'll eventually pass those previous recessions. But, we're hardly in "the worst downturn ever!" (at least not yet) as this graph suggests.

Here is a graph for the employment population ratio via the BLS:

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/graphics/LNS12300000_64607_1234131206896.gif

Yes, we are facing a steep drop in jobs, but not an unprecedented one, and we're still well above the historical average for employment/population ratio. That is not to say we are fine. We're not. But let's look honestly at where we are, what it compares to, and where we're likely to go.

The economy is taking a giant hit and we need to do something to fix it, and maybe some fear-mongering will get some asses in gear, but be well aware that the use of graphs like this is little more than basic fear-mongering.

Fear itself can exacerbate economic downturns by reinforcing the psychology of the individual that can create a paradox of thrift which can then lead us down the path of a liquidity trap.

That is not to say that if we all close our eyes and think happy thoughts we'll be just fine, but this graph should upset anyone who values objectivity, statistical honesty, or just plain good science.

@#5, why do you think this is comparable to 1982? We are in a state of global deflation. No one born after WWII has ever seen this. This isn't 1982, which was a brutal recession to be sure, but not one brought about by a complete collapse of leverage built upon leverage. In fact, leverage as a percentage of GDP was extremely healthy by 1982, what with a decade of stagflation.

We ain't there now. Betcha this plays out worse and longer...much longer.

Well, I've said it before... I picked the best time ever to graduate from college! Woo!

Shouldn't it chart the percentage of jobs lost, rather than the number? Otherwise it's not relative, right?

Yes and no. The three lines are derived from very similar time frames, when the economy was relatively the same size. If we went back further in time we'd need to do what you suggest, or at least keep in mind how any total jobs there have been in the past.

My ass is in rapid decline, as well, and I'm in a pretty bad depression about it.

Maybe try to grow some more hair over it? Sorry, I can't think of anything better but, after all, who can tell the real age of Chewbacca?

"-The Grand Old Depression"

Nice, Takuan.

Even if the numbers stop plummeting over the next few months it looks like we'll spend four years or so bouncing around the bottom and maybe we'll get back to the starting point after a total of six or seven years.

IF things start turning around soon.

"Low unemployment has been perhaps the greatest success of the US economy, compared to Europe."

Not really. The US, especially the extremist conservatism we've been under of late, plays games with the figures.

Our real unemployment is better reflected as 13.9%. European spending on social welfare has also not been terribly out of line compared to the US. They pay for their health care up front, before taxes. We pay for it after taxes. They distribute their health benefits more or less evenly while we give preference to the rich and the poor get only emergency room treatment. The most expensive and least effective kind.

American tax and health care policies are stupid and favor the rich because Americans are stupid and have been trained to worship their masters.

oh, you mean its not really upside down?

#16 Covered a lot of it, and while I don't want to minimize the problems with our economy, the population of the US (I'm assuming this is only US since it's on the Speaker of the House's Website) has grown an estimated 60 Million since 1990 and ~30 million since 2000. It's not really fair to compare them by number of jobs lost. As someone said, a percentage would be a better.

what king of crime has the best future right now? Forget growing pot, that'll be legal in a year. Gun running? Foreign currency? mmmmmm. Nope, it'll be kidnapping, extortion and blackmail. How to get positioned for this? You'll have to have a gang of some kind backing you. Maybe religious affinity groups? The Born Again Mafia ? IS there any money in organ-legging? I think America should look to Mexico today for direction here.

What does a recession look like? A bunch of people moving back in with their parents, judging by the trend amongst my (unemployed) friends.

Whoa, if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's to not trust charts and graphs. All you have to do is mess with the y-axis units or the x-axis time period to make it look like something incredible or horrible is happening. An economist friend of mine compares graphs to porn, wherein the normal, useful, boring graphs used by professionals for real analysis are akin to the missionary position, while the graphs they use on, say, CNBC are akin to someone fucking a horse.

The thing about this recession/depression that is different from all the rest and that will likely make it not last as long or be as painful as everyone thinks is that this is the most globalized society has been in human history. Unless the US turns isolationist (which it might, I suppose), this is going to be moving very much in the right direction by this time next year. Seriously. The next 6-9 months won't be fun, but it isn't going to last. The rest of the world can't afford to let it last and now has the ability to do something about it.

The biggest issue we're going to have to deal with, btw, isn't job losses, it's restablizing/reinventing the US banking industry. The sooner that happens, the sooner the rest of the world trusts us with money again, and the sooner this gets fixed.

I'm not trying to simplify what I know is a very complex issue, I'm just saying that's the core thing here. Get the banking straight, and everything else will fall in line much more easily and rapidly.

Well, the other two were over before anyone officially admitted it was a recession.

One factor often omitted from these charts is that more women are now in formal employment as opposed to the informal employment which used to be the best they could hope for. So they are appearing in these figures in greater numbers than they used to.

The complaints about adjustment for population are bogus because the chart compares 1990, 2001, and now. Adjusting for population growth would make only a minor change in the chart; the slope of the job losses would still be much steeper than in 1990 or 2001, and the blue line would be closer to the red line.

Similarly, the complaint about women's role in the workforce is also bogus, because the percentage of working women hasn't changed much since 1990.

Unicorn chaser please!

I think it is time for some patriotic defense weapons manufacturers and others who rake in a ton of money from the wars to say,

"Hey, we think it's more important that the country be strong in our over all work force. We defense contractors are going to give up what has become an entitlement for us, increased spending on weapons that we don't need or don't work.

It's crazy for us to be asking the tax payers for more money for weapons when they are hunting for work and food. It's crazy for the government to cut programs that help save lives when we are paid to destroy lives. We, better than anyone know how much money the war has cost, and we have profited. Now its time for us to think of the entire country. I know it may seem crazy, like I'm the character 'Tony' Stark in Ironman saying I'm going to cut defense spending. But being patriotic means a duty to the Country not just our stockholders. Our stockholders are patriots too, so they will understand. I'm going to call any defense company that doesn't do this traitors to the country and cowards who aren't willing to do what is best for the country first. Country First? Where have I heard that before?

The practical part of this proposal is are asking the Pentagon to reduce our funding by 30 percent and we ask ALL defense contractors to do the same, (with the exception of the ones that deal with soldiers in the field and Vets who are supporting their physical and mental health)
If you are spending money on the Osprey or blowing money on Star Wars programs cut back! It's the right thing to do."

Sure this seems crazy, but it ISN'T crazy to ask people to lose their jobs and perhaps starve so we can create a weapon that doesn't work and may never work?

Well if the defense contractors don't step up we could then force them. Put Colin Powell in charge. He did it last time when he had to close down bases. Better yet, put someone like Gen. Petraeus in charge. He's beloved by the right. His job will be to CUT spending in the correct ways. Do the whole Nixon goes to China, Clinton reforms Welfare deal with a Real American Hero. Tell them, "Your job is to do what Truman did after the war, find the profiteers, cut their money, recover the cash and keep the troops safe. Then go after the companies who are funding stuff you know is nonsense. I need a stone cold war hawk right wing conservative to do this. General Petraeus: THIS IS AN ORDER FROM YOUR COMMANDER IN CHIEF DURING A TIME OF WAR.

If if he refuses? How dare they refuse the President, IN A TIME OF WAR!? Then it is Truman firing MacArthur time for not following orders.

It's called the business cycle:

This happens every ten years or so -- way up, then way down. Never mind that people's lives and needs are fairly constant (you need to eat every day, etc) -- the stockbrokers need to 'create value' (start rumors) to make money, and then once they've got everyone's optimism up, sell to them at inflated prices. Then they have a 'correction' which resets the prices back to where they were before the hype, so everyone else loses, and they can start over.

How about forgiving student loan debt for those making, say, less than 90K a yeah? Instant money into economy!

Sadly, the last few months are the first time in about 5 years that I've been gainfully employed.

@#4 Two years ago.

@#29, BIFFPOW, I'm willing to bet that the biggest issue is indeed job losses.

The elephant in the room is the balance of payments problem. The Bretton Woods II system, built upon mercantilist Asia and a profligate U.S. has to be resolved for sustainable global growth to resume. Without some sort of redress, neither China nor the U.S. can expect long term economic health. Simply put, a series of economic bubbles will form, then collapse, wash-rinse-repeat.

Getting the banking straight without addressing the macro picture means keeping the banking crooked.

The problem then is truly one of job losses. The current global system guarantees U.S. weakness, and an Asian reliance on exporting to weakening western economies. I can't see how job growth will resume in the west without changing the paradigm, nor do I see strength accruing to the Asian workforce. It is as zombified a system as is our banking.

Bonzonomics!

This wouldn't have happened if we had cut taxes and eliminated regulations like Bush wanted us to!

For the love of God, why didn't we listen to the Republicans for all those years?
[/snark]

God this is scary! The last chart a saw with such a steep vertical line was Enron's stock price.

As someone who has worked for a government statistics agency, this graph just makes me cringe. Total number of jobs lost seems like a bad indicator in this case. Percentage of employment would be better. Not only is it misleading because the population increases, but it also says nothing about how many jobs were around before each loss. I'm not saying it's a cheery picture, of course.

@34 you look like you need a good laugh:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/save-the-pitiful-f-22_b_164148.html

OH NOES!!1

We're all gunna die!!!

...eventually. It'll either be Road Warrior or it'll get better. No sense panicking. Personally, I hope Keynes proves correct and I hope they stick to following his instructions. But I'm also investing in homoerotic leather armor and canned food. Y'know. Just in case.

I'm a little disappointed - one of the worst possible things in uncertain economic times is fear, and a lack of real information. Boing Boing is usually good for communication all sides of a story...not so this time.

Before everyone starts running for their safe rooms with a year's supply of Chef Boyardee, take a step back and really learn about what's going on.

The most important thing to clear up is the whole depression thing. To clear that up:
- 3.6 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the recession in Dec 2007 (2.5% drop in payrolls). A year into the great depression, 10 million jobs were lost. By 1933, it was 35%.
- Even the pessimistic forecasts are suggesting that the jobless rate in our current recession will top out at 9% or so. The 81-82 recession hit 11%.

Some additional information that is important:
- The size of the workforce is 65% higher than the last significant recession in 81 - 82.
- 598000 jobs disappeared last month, the highest since 1974 - and represents about .5% of payrolls.
- This would likely have to be over 1 million job reductions to equal the impact of the job losses in the mid 70's.
- The peak reduction in jobs in the recessions of the 70's and 80's was .8%
- decreasing energy costs and lower priced imports have lessened the blow on purchasing power (actually increasing it slightly). A year into the 80's recession, purchasing power was down 4%.

Clearly, the economy isn't in great shape and the first quarter of 2009 is likely to be worse, so the numbers will look worse than now when it's done. That said, I think that this recession will sit somewhere between the early 80's and early 90's in severity.

It's no where near a depression. Unless people continue with scare tactics, and make a lot of bad decisions.

Man, I really miss 1982... Commodore 64 was the shiz-nit!

...An economist friend of mine compares graphs to porn, wherein the normal, useful, boring graphs used by professionals for real analysis are akin to the missionary position, while the graphs they use on, say, CNBC are akin to someone fucking a horse.

Are you sure a good horse-fucking isn't an apt metaphor for what America will be experiencing over the coming months?

Thia is not a recession. This is a depression and it's just getting started. Main stream media is trickling out information as their overlords allow. They don't want people flipping out but this is just preventing the people from preparing themselves for what's really coming. Things are not going to get better for a long long time.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01302009.html

DONATAOLLA, you're right, this won't be the great depression, but it won't be 1980-82 either.

Everyone is also right about how bad this chart is. Still, comparing unemployment to earlier periods, even as a percentage doesn't work unless you calculate umemployment in the same way. We don't do that.

Unemployment as compared to earlier periods is far more in line with the 74 recession if tallied the same way, and it is increasing. There is also the problem of LEVERAGE. Household balances are far worse than in any post WWII recession. That will hurt, plus there haven't been gains in household income since the late 90's. This period of income stagnation did not characterize the era prior the 74 recession, nor the 80-82. We are in a new world here, post WWII.

I want to put on a happy hat and see growth in six months, but that is not realistic. I don't think it helps anyone by comparing normal business cycle recessions to our current situation. So, scare tactics aren't going to be the reason for several/many years of blah.

I would also love to see it in percentage of workforce, percentage of population, or something else to put it in more perspective.

Here are some charts from a pretty good, nay, great blog, that go back to 1995: http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2009/02/todays_job_repo.html

Also of note, but not updated recently, the http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2008/09/the_next_depres.html

(It helps, when looking for your comment, to have posted it and not lost it in a previous window...)

you read#44? You've all got till March 1 to kill the Raptor-Turkey, or kiss another $65,000,000,000.00 goodbye for a fighter that can't actually fight. As opposed to 65 billon for say, I don't know, those meds your aged mother needs to live?

scary ass-job

http://www.xkcd.com/37/

I am still waiting for my spreadsheet on how all of the TARP money is being spent!!! I want to know what banks we need to vote off the island.

Graphs like this are not valid unless they're presented as a percentage. For example, there were probably 20% fewer total jobs in 1990, so expressing losses as a percentage of total jobs would severely deepen the 1990 curve. In fact, the jobless rate is about the same as it was at the deepest point in the '90 recession.

Why not just go ahead and really scare the hell out of us by putting the '30's depression on there, too.

And while there may have been 3.5M layoffs announced in the last year, you're forgetting to factor in those who found other jobs, not to mention that some of those layoffs haven't happened yet and won't for months to come, so those people aren't jobless yet, and can't be counted yet.

In summary, great job skewing the data!

Jeez, naysayers abound. I don't see the word "depression" in Cory's post. Yes, the chart may not exactly compare apples to apples. But note that the job losses in this current cycle are continuing long after they abated in the prior two cycles. That's it. Why nitpick? The excrement is hitting the freaking fan here. Why so quick to explain that it's not? It is. /rant mode off.

You know what i hate? The world hasn't changed. There haven't been any cataclysmal events on the Earth during the last 6 months. The Earth and it's resources are still pottering along like usual.. and yet.. millions of people are losing their jobs...

All caused by this notion of wealth.. I find it sickening to watch..

"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage." - Ripley

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hyphen.jpg

@Takuan no.14 -

My vote is for calling it ABCD (A Bush/Cheney Depression) ...

@59- If not for the notion of wealth, chances are that those global resources would never have been harvested in the first place.

Hell, I wouldn't do my job if not for the wealth that gets tossed my way as a side effect-- I'd surely be spending my time on less useful but more personally enjoyable hobbies.

I'd have side with the lesser-known spider-man villain eclectro, who's #5 comment suggested the slope may be harsh, but it isn't as sinister when compared to the more rough years (1982 for example).
Anyway,

@#17 SeamusAndrewMurphy, it's not a comparison of 2008-09 to 1982, I think they were pointing out the Speaker of the House selected the most recent, somewhat weaker recessions to make the graph more terrifying. The merits of a objective perspective toward data analysis is tossed aside for sensationalism. But what am I complaining about... that's how politics are-- perhaps some people need cajoled into action.

no, the chimp isn't responsible for anything, his owners are.

"The thing about this recession/depression that is different from all the rest and that will likely make it not last as long or be as painful as everyone thinks is that this is the most globalized society has been in human history. Unless the US turns isolationist (which it might, I suppose), this is going to be moving very much in the right direction by this time next year."

Sure. Just ask Japan.

Company A loans a bunch of people money that don't have a chance of paying it back. The only reason Company A evens does this in the first place is because it believes it can make a profit.
Company B buys the loans.
Company B gives out a bunch of loans to other companies, D, E
Company B gets it's loans called by Company Z ( for whatever reason )
Company B finds out it's loans mean exactly nil. Oh crap. What do we do?
Company B calls in it's loans.
Company D pays it back, but Company E can't.
Company B and E go into receivership and sack their workers.
Company D now has less money, it has to sack some workers as well to keep profits up.

In this extremely simplistic view of a small part of the cause of the crisis, we have 3 companies having issues. Imagine 2 of those companies are large, say 10,000 workers each, and imagine the 3rd sacks 5000. That's 15,000 workers out of business because of a single business directive.. "Make more profit".

And who ultimately is at fault in the example above? The lawmakers for not having enough checks and balances? The people for making loans without having ability to pay it back? Company A for making the loans? Company B for buying them? Or Company Z for initially calling the loan?

Somewhere along the line, someone made a profit out of that example. Someone was made richer, while 15,000 people lost their jobs. Someone is enjoying their cruise ship holiday with their margaritas at the expense of 15,000 people, now lining up in the cold snow at the dole office, waiting for government handouts.

Perhaps i worded my earlier post wrong. I don't have a problem with wealth. People can be poor, yet wealthy in numerous ways. I have a problem with unrestrained profit mongering no matter what the cost.

That is what sickens me.

And no, i don't have an answer, i don't have a solution, but i do know that there is something deeply wrong with what is happening.

When I first saw this, my first thoughts were "this is missing the early 80's" and "this should be percentage, not absolute, change." Clicking through to the comments, I found I wasn't the only one.

I did the chart again quickly with another data series (early 80's recession): updated chart

Making it percentage change makes a huge difference, I'd not realized the number of jobs had increased that much in a couple of decades.

Side thought: Can we attribute some of the sharp drop to just in time manufacturing? Everybody nowadays operates under a manufacturing model where they know that "stuff sitting around in a warehouse" has a pretty heavy cost. So, does a decrease in demand propagate from consumer to store to distributor to manufacturer much faster now (compared to 20-30 years ago)? If so, how powerful is the effect? How much of the slope on that job graph is from general bad conditions, and how much is from fast-traveling bad news bunching up layoffs?

Note: I'm not saying it isn't really bad out there, I know the economic conditions are extremely cruddy.

Re: #68 posted by amarquis , February 8, 2009 9:28 PM

Thanks amarquis. Nice work.

I found a percentage comparison of rece/depressions since 1948.

http://www.williampolley.com/blog/assets_c/2009/02/employ_recession1.html

A couple of items might not have been mentioned yet in this discussion:

. The size of the U.S. federal government as a percentage of GDP is a variable. To the extent that federal government spending is non-cyclical, the relative size of the federal government affects its ability to dampen recessions, in the absence of extraordinary spending measures.

. Until now, people, companies, and governments have invested in U.S. financial assets, especially when times have been rough. Values have recovered here first, after world-wide recessions, in part because of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone believes that the USA is the place to put rainy-day money, then the presence of that money kick-starts our economy first.

If the USA ceases to be viewed as the place to put rainy-day money, the USA could cease to be the engine of growth out of recessions. We benefited from that inflow of money, and we may live to regret its absence.

China is talking about reducing its exposure to U.S. financial markets; others may do the same. China would like to see renewed transparency and renewed enforcement of regulations in the USA. So would I.

line go down?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Looks like the economics are trickling down.

MDH said:

The three lines are derived from very similar time frames, when the economy was relatively the same size.

I don't get this chart - I'm not arguing the numbers, I'm confused by the format.

I understand the "very similar timeframes" MDH refers to, but I don't see that the "economy was relatively the same size" in 1991, 2001, and (presumably) 2008 (since the chart says "current recession" line started 14 months ago).

If they all start at the same point, as shown in this graphic, that implies the number of jobs at the start of each recession were aprox. equal (is that what MDH meant with economy..same size"?) - but this isn't the case, is it?

The more useful chart, IMHO, would be to track percentages of workforce unemployed over a period of time, that removes the impact of increasing number of workers for each recession and would allow for meaningful comparisons to "The Great Depression".

If "The Great Depression" were to be mapped onto this chart it would look trifling, but I think many here would agree that The Great Depression was worse than any of the three recessions graphed on the above chart.

Went looking, found this chart at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for those interested in the number of unemployed per year over an extended historical period (1948-2008).

Those interested can reformat the charts and see greater detail for selected periods (say 1991 - 1994, 2001 - 2005, the blue and red lines in the above graphic).

Takuan,

Why not the Barny Frank Depression? Or the Bleeding Heart Depression. Everybody deserves to own a house, right?

Typical propaganda meant to scare the uninformed masses It has been debunked here - http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/07/more-how-bad-is-it/

Consider the source. The House Speaker has an agenda.

Can we see this chart with the addition of the Great Depression?

IVAN256 - how about the "Everyone gets a free house Depression?":

The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve. [emphasis added]

From Bloomberg.com

If they all start at the same point, as shown in this graphic, that implies the number of jobs at the start of each recession were aprox. equal (is that what MDH meant with economy..same size"?) - but this isn't the case, is it?

Yes, actually that -is- what I meant.

And No, it's not *exactly* the same, but it IS less than an order of magnitude difference, so they are comparable. Not equal, but comparable.

We're clever people, we can say to ourselves "that red line is actually 5% steeper if adjusted for the difference in total number of jobs at the start of these contraction periods).

Adding in (job for job) the Great Depression, or the 1890's would likely be an order of magnitude difference in the number of total jobs at the beginning.

#32

And your statements are based on what exactly?

population in 1990 = 248,709,873 [census.gov]
population in 2008 = 303,824,640 [July est. cia.gov]

increase = 18%

Does this take into effect the population growth?

Has anyone noticed that they all seem to level off at the same time, roughly?

#81

Even larger of a percentage increase: the peak number of non-farm jobs (in thousands):

Peak jobs 1990 = 109817
Peak jobs 2007 = 138152

#78

The BoL data, sadly, only goes back to 1939 as far as I know.

Why fixate on percentages? The point of the graph is that one job lost is one person who lost their job - not that it's 0.0000001% of the workforce, or whatever. It's about people, goddammit!

Given the source, Nancy "I Don't Even Know The Difference Between a Stock and a Bond" Pelosi; I don't expect much in the way of accuracy or insight from "her" blog (oddly this was posted by "Karina"). And given the misguided, self serving, pork sandwich that is the proposed government bailout bill, I think Pelosi & Co. will be helping to push that green line down alot further. ALOT FURTHER!!
Wait till we start implementing Obama and Pelosi's protectionist "buy american" crap and get to feel the collapse of Int'l trade as a result. That is estimated to remove an additional 30% of US GDP.
OPEN THE BORDER ALREADY!!
CP

Another better graph, using percentages and going back a bit further:

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/02/09/comparing-this-recession-to-the-last-five/

Politicians & statistics are never a good mixture.

@46
This isn't going to be a Great Depression--only a Fair to Middlin' Depression.

SEDNABOO, I noticed as well - at the end of every depression (according to the Pelosi graphic) has employment returning to it's "pre-recession" high, effectively negating the losses during the recession. That is small comfort if you lost your job during the recession, but it does show that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. (Or is that a trampoline at the bottom of the cliff?)

We're sending out books from our library system all over the county on entrepreneurship, starting your own business, a couple on becoming a highway construction supervisor (Shovel-ready, people!), fruit and vegetable gardening, back-to-basics living, sewing your own clothing--quite a number of folks are taking the attitude of being resourceful and resilient.

OH. And a friend of mine mentioned that his cousin's rich jerk boss was contacted by a group of rich folks forming what is apparently called a 'vulture fund', that snaps up assets at fire sale prices.

Keep your wits about you and your spirits high and we'll come through this wiser and tougher.

Can I start a controversy or two?

1. Free markets- the God that failed.

2. The Soviet Union did not go thru a depression because it didn't have a stock market.

Discussion? (The first is based on my personal opinion. The second, I'm just throwing it out because I want to see if any of youse can refute or confirm this idea that came to me.) (And yeah, I know in the 30s in Russia there were purges. That ain't my point.)

StrangeFriend,

It could be difficult to get realistic GDP data for the USSR, in that era (or any era).
In the late 1980s, I tried to get GDP data on the USSR. IIRC, what I found was a CIA estimate based on an old study of values of tractors made in the USSR versus in the USA. This ratio was scaled up to represent the entire USSR economy, and extrapolated for an number of years. In other words, the CIA didn't know. The result was that per capita income in the USSR looked higher that that of Ireland. I talked with people who had been to both places, and the subjective consensus was that people in Ireland had incomes and wealth about 4 times as large as those in the USSR.

Here is a counter-thought:

The Middle Ages were a thousand-year depression. It was a full-employment depression; everyone was owned by someone. The Renaissance happened for many reasons, but if we had waited for the domestic business sector to power us out of that downturn, we still would be serfs. (I am counting the discovery of the New World, and the resulting new wealth, as being external factors.)

StrangeFriend,

I think that it is possible to have oscillations in an economic system that does not have a stock market, and maybe even in a system that does not have other well-developed markets. For oscillations to diverge in systems (to get bigger and bigger), you need relatively large responses to lagged signals, and relatively small responses to current-period signals. For example, if supply responds a lot to changes in lagged prices, and demand responds a little to changes in current-period prices, you get the two-period cobweb cycle that is familiar in economics.

(To generalize a bit for a two-period cycle, if the responses lagged an even number of periods are small, and responses lagged an odd number of periods are large, then you get oscillations. A lag of zero corresponds to the current period. I am assuming responses having the usual signs.)

How do you get lags?
. It may take significant time to change production levels after prices change.
. After people pass through a period with favorable prices or income, it may take them some time to get used to the idea that prices or income have changed, and aren't going to be favorable for a while.
. It may take time to build stocks or draw them down.
...

ANONYMOUS said:

And a friend of mine mentioned that his cousin's rich jerk boss was contacted by a group of rich folks forming what is apparently called a 'vulture fund', that snaps up assets at fire sale prices.

What, they (rich folks) shouldn't offer money to owners interested in selling their assets? Better the assets should go unsold and the owner lose their entire investment?

As an example, what if one of the big three went belly-up, and Tesla Motors was able to snap up an auto plant for pennies on the dollar and start mass-producing their plug-in electric cars in, say, 12 months. That would have the effect of creating jobs where there were none (the otherwise shuttered auto plant), and could have the effect of lessening our dependence on foreign oil in the very near-term.

That these "rich folks" are still willing to invest when many others are sitting on their money is a good thing - this is an actual stimulus to the economy.

Eek, a graph! Let's burn a trillion dollars of our children's money and blow smoke rings at it!

Interesting that they are comparing actual numbers rather than percentages, and only job losses instead of unemployment rate (hint: latter takes into account job creation as well). Not saying situation is good, but I sense malice just to get a shock factor. As they always say: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.