The real unemployment, cont’d

The mainstream media are so desperate to portray economic trends in optimistic terms that a lot of our current malaise is left unexplored. To repeat myself, I think this is especially the case with respect to unemployment. The scope of the suffering created by large-scale long-term unemployment has somehow failed to register. The real unemployment will never get in the books, so to speak, at least so long as a Democrat is president and an election is looming.
In his post “The age of Obama #fail,” David Harsanyi quotes Iain Murray:

[Friday’s] much weaker than expected employment numbers show that the president’s agenda of more regulation and increased spending has undoubtedly failed. However much money he throws at the problem, entrepreneurs are not going to start adding jobs to the economy while the burden of regulation is so high. Regulations cost the economy $1.75 trillion each year. It is regulation that is dragging us back to recession.

Harsanyi also posts the mind-boggling chart below, via Business Insider. Analyze this:
chart-of-the-day-the-scariest-jobs-chart-ever-june-2011.jpg
UPDATE: A reader comments:

I’ve seen the graph many times and I believe you are unintentionally supporting President Obama’s claim that he “inherited” a Great Recession. The graph is misleading because it is “Aligned At Maximum Job Losses.”
The original version of this graph, from the same source, used to have all recessions start at the far left of the graph. If you were to view that version, you would see that the current recession was quite average for the first year or so as the red line would be clumped in the middle of all the other lines. After a year, job losses stacked up and the red line dropped precipitously.
Depending on your partisanship, one could view the plunge aligning with either Obama’s election or the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I was president of a small division owned by a DOW Jones 30 company when Obama was elected and the next day we began major restructuring plans so I see it as the former.
Regardless, I believe showing the other chart will reveal that Obama “inherited” an average recession, used it to push radical measures, and extended the recession far longer than it should have been.

If anyone can supply us with an accurate alternative to this chart, I’d like to post it as well.
ED DRISCOLL ANSWERS THE CALL: Again via Business Insider:
real2.jpg

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