What if the Economy Never Recovers?

By Carl Schramm

There’s a growing portion of Americans who consider this a real possibility. It is common to hear people discuss 2% annual growth and 8% unemployment as the “new normal.” Respected economists like Robert Gordon even contend that our country’s franchise on innovation is being lost. Perhaps most alarming is that Americans between the ages of 18 and 27 have never known what it’s like to participate in a robust, growing, economy. The sentiment felt today is not unprecedented in history. During the Great Depression there was likewise a feeling that recovery might never come. It is assumed that we now really understand the events of 1929 and how the near decade long Depression finally came to an end. Clearly we do not; if we did, we would have pulled ourselves out of the current predicament by now. [more...]