The more I thought about that suggestion, the better it seemed and so that comparison is exactly what I propose to offer. In the moment-by-moment focus on the economic data, and all the wiggles and ticks up and down of this indicator or that, we can often neglect to stand back and look at the big picture.
So let us rectify that for the next 25 minutes or so. The approach is to use charts and tables to compare two decades – the 1970s and the 2000s – so as to offer some perspectives on how things have changed and, perhaps, on how they are similar.