Director Blue has done a wonderful job of putting together graphs that picture what has been done to our economy, and are easily understood as there is a comparison to other recessions and recoveries............we are not in recovery from what we can see here.  This article offer a great pictoral representation of what is going on in our economy, and there is more info and further charts at the link below.

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3.26.2012

Two charts that depict the tragedy of lawless, temporary politicians whose poor decisions will take a terrible toll on countless, future generations*:

...The employment-to-population ratio displays a classic V-shape recession and recovery pattern in the 1970s and 1980s. In the recession and recovery of the early 1990s, however, the employment-to-population ratio instead displays a U shape, only returning to its pre-recession level three years after the peak in the unemployment rate. In the recession and recovery of the early 2000s, neither the participation rate nor the employment-to-population ratio returns to its previous level, so we see an incomplete U-shape pattern.

In the most recent cycle, the employment-to-population ratio traces out an L shape, but the unemployment rate falls because the participation rate declines substantially (a much more gradual decline was expected by many given the aging of the baby boomers); in other words, a larger share of the population is out of the labor force rather than participating and being unemployed.

read more here:  http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/03/two-charts-that-illustrate...