Sounds like goalpost moving, where slightly mediocre growth becomes a &#x27;depression&#x27;<p>The 2008 recession, while deep and sudden, was narrow, only lasting about 16 months until growth picked up, where it has remained. Hardly a decade.<p>Also, the authors seem to be cherry picking the bad data (weak wage growth, China, shrinking labor force) and ignoring the good data such as exports, consumer spending, robust S&amp;P 500 profits &amp; earnings, technological innovation, stock market gains, etc.<p><i>Right now, we’re in a Goldilocks economy of modest growth, no stagnation, tame inflation, and no meaningful economic headwinds. Some pundits like Summers and Krugman bemoan how America’s economic growth is too anemic, especially compared to the 40′s and 50′s, and that its best days are behind it, but as I show here and in the graph below, US GDP growth has broken from the pack, since 2008 exceeding pretty much all g-20 nations. Yeah, 2-3% GDP growth ain’t great, but compared to pretty much everywhere else that has either no growth (Japan, UK, France) or high-inflation growth (Turkey, India, Brazil) – it’s pretty good. </i><p>source: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;greyenlightenment.com&#x2F;america-is-not-in-decline-long-post&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;greyenlightenment.com&#x2F;america-is-not-in-decline-long-...</a><p><i>And that is especially impressive for an economy as large as America. We’re never going to get back to 40′s era growth, and that’s fine. Law of large numbers and diminishing returns. It’s harder to grow an economy that is 5x larger at the rate it was growing when it was 5x smaller.<p>Post-2008 GDP growth is pretty much back to the historical average, or at least back to where it was in the late 90′s and 2000′s. Not hyper-speed growth, but certainty not recessionary.<p>Recent real GDP (below) doesn’t differ too much from historical performance:</i><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;znVtqaH.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;znVtqaH.jpg</a><p>Real US GDP growth is roughly back to where it was between 1997-2007, and no one was complaining about stagnation back then.