The reader will note that our comparisons relate to the period dating from the onset of the crisis, and do not delineate between the “recession” period and the “recovery” period. Elsewhere we have explained why this distinction is somewhat meaningless in the aftermath of a financial crises, where false dawns make it very difficult to detect the start of an ultimate recovery in real time. That is why we have consistently argued that the popular term “Great Recession” is something of a misnomer for the current downturn, which we have argued would be better thought of as.
