Record-Breaking Recession

Here's a chart that compares the depth and duration of all of the Post-WWII recessions we've suffered. Clearly, our current woes are far worse than anything we've seen heretofore. Each recession is plotted so that the low point of the recession (maximum job losses) is on the mid-line of the chart:

Ed Morrisey at Hot Air comments:

[The chart] demonstrates the folly of the Obama administration’s insistence that we have been experiencing a recovery and any sort of significant growth in job creation. After hitting the nadir of job losses relative to our peak inter-recession employment, we have essentially flatlined for far longer than any other post-recession period. Nothing in the data shows a hint that we will soon break out of that pattern either, and Ben Bernanke says we’ll probably go four to five more years on this same trajectory.

The only way to achieve recovery is to increase job growth. There are in theory two ways to do that. One is to stimulate it through government spending. The Obama team has tried that, and it hasn't worked. The other is by creating a business climate that will encourage employers to hire and invest. That means cutting taxes and easing stifling regulations on business. This the current administration is ideologically opposed to doing.

The words "tax cut" have the same effect upon them as holding a crucifix up to a vampire has on the vampire. So, unless there's a change of heart in the White House, look for that redline to pretty much stay where it is, and good luck to this year's graduating class.

Morrissey has some insightful things to say about this at the link.