The headlines these days trumpet the bad news of housing foreclosures, layoffs and business failures along with stories about homelessness, food pantries and lost retirement funds. Obviously, the current economy is challenging, but just how bad is it compared to previous downturns?<\/p>\n
The head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, says that in the past few weeks she’s heard herself uttering these words far too often: “the worst 12-month job loss since the Great Depression, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the worst rise in home foreclosures since the Great Depression.”<\/p>\n
Those phrases echo through the halls of Congress and tumble from the president’s lips. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sounds off, saying this week that “the world is suffering through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.”<\/p>\n