That's what the NYT says. And we know that because all of the economists who missed the housing bubble say so. This is getting to be a bit like theater of the absurd. Last week, we had the leading economists tell us that we could end up in another Great Depression. Today we are being told that the economy is stronger than in the 70s, a period in which GDP growth averaged 3.0 percent and the unemployment rate averaged 6.2 percent.The 70s were not a great decade for the economy, but no one in their right mind could compare them to the Great Depression. If the economy is stronger than it was in the 70s, or even close to as strong, then the comparisons to the Great Depression were nonsense (as I argued).
--Dean Baker
