It's Long Past Time For the Press to Compare This 'Recovery' to
the Awful 1930s, Because It's Barely Better  The press, even in
the wake of yesterday's awful reported 2.9 percent annualized
first-quarter contraction, continues to regale us with noise
about the economy's "recovery" during the past five years.  As
P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters noted yesterday,'s Annalyn Kurtz,
in giving readers "3 reasons not to freak out about -2.9% GDP,"
concluded her report by telling readers that "This recovery is
underway, but it's choppy and still very slow." Actually, it may
have resumed this quarter. At the Associated Press yesterday,
Martin Crutsinger all too predictably wrote that "the setback is
widely thought to be temporary, with growth rebounding solidly
since spring." After almost five years of this nonsense, it's
long past time that they start telling readers, listeners, and
viewers that this economy bears more resemblance to the 1930s
economy under Franklin Delano Roosevelt than it does any post-
downturn economy