Nostalgia for the Nixon era has been wafting through the air as of late. Ron Howard’s film Frost/Nixon gives Americans unhappy with Bush’s reign a chance at something close to collective catharsis—one can fantasize that the on-screen Nixon is George Walker Bush, finally admitting to feelings of guilt and regret.
No such catharsis comes when we look back at the frighteningly steep job losses of 1974, the year Nixon left office, and realize that not only have we matched those numbers, we are actually set to exceed them this year. Reuters reports, “If December’s job picture mirror[s] the last three months, it would make 2008 the worst for employment since 1945.”
I’ve heard of retro fashion. But now we’re in the midst of a retro recession.
