The Long Haul: the U.S. Economy

If the recession is over, why does the pain linger? Because this is no normal recovery. Business is barely moving. And consumers have dug in their heels. But there's good news: if the U.S. gets to work

IF AMERICA'S ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE seems suddenly alien and hostile to many citizens, there is good reason: they have never seen anything like it. Nothing in memory has prepared consumers for such turbulent, epochal change, the sort of upheaval that happens once in 50 years. That may explain why so many voter polls, taken as the economy shudders toward the November election, reveal such ragged emotional edges, so much fear and misgiving. Even the economists do not have a name for the present condition, though one has described it as "suspended animation" and "never-never land."

The outward sign of the change is...

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