Obama's “recovery”...

Obama's “recovery”...  The graph at right (click to embiggen) provides a detailed view of what Obama has declared to be a robust recovery.  I would call it hard evidence of a non-recovery, with a foreshadowing of more trouble to come.

The graph shows how the labor force participation rates for various age groups have changed since the onset of the recession in 2007.

The first thing I noticed is that one age group is actually has a higher labor force participation rate.  What group is this?  The oldest workers, those aged 55 and over.  All other age groups have lower labor force participation rates – even after 2 years of “recovery” – than they did at the onset of the recession.

The second thing that struck me is that two of these age groups stand out for the largest drop – the two youngest groups, covering workers from 18 to 24 years old.  Younger people are having far more trouble finding work than older, more experienced workers.  That does not bode well for the future, for until these younger workers can find work and gain experience, they will remain disadvantaged in the work place.

This recession has now broken all records for longevity of an economic depression or recession.  It's hard to avoid concluding that our economic policies – especially the huge bailouts and “stimulus” programs – have utterly failed (though the progressives are proclaiming them to be stellar successes, on the hypothesis – considered as fact by them – that those programs prevented an outright depression).  Worse, there's no end in sight.  It reminds me of the Carter era, in the late '70s, when the economic malaise looked like it was just going to go on forever...