The business cycle, then and now

Two interesting graphs from Calculated Risk. The first shows that the changes in GDP seem during the last recessive are on a par with those of the early 1980s and before (though we don't know if we're in a U or V shaped recession yet, though the odds are probably more U than V right now). But the second shows that in terms of employment we may be in uncharted territory, the worst of both worlds in terms of the jobless recoveries of the shallow recessions of the 1990s and early 2000s as well as the deep declines in employment of earlier recessions. I've been hearing about the soon-to-come structural realignments in the economy resulting in a higher basal rate of unemployment for nearly 20 years. Economists will of course scoff at this sort of fatalism, pointing out such prognostications have always been falsified in the past. We'll see....