> The business cycle has since the 1970's has been a bit worse than the cycle from '45 to 75. Nothing like the current financial crisis happened during that tim

> The business cycle has since the 1970's has been a bit worse than the cycle from '45 to 75. Nothing like the current financial crisis happened during that time. Nothing like the current financial crises happened since the 1930ies. Then again, the structure of the economy radically changed since that time (think globalisation). > I don't know how the overall growth rates compare. GDP calculations are full of subjective assumptions. The 80ies and the 90ies was one of the best and longest periods of economic growth for the USA. Since 1982 (before the current mess) there was only a small recession in 1990 and a quarter long one in 2001. GDP is probably one of the least subjective measures that there is. I don’t know what other measure would be less objective. You also seem to ignore the extremely high inflation in the 1970ies.