Must-Read: Matthew Yglesias: 5 Overhyped Trends that Turned Out to Just Be a Big Recession

Must-Read: Matthew Yglesias: 5 Overhyped Trends that Turned Out to Just Be a Big Recession: “From New York Times columns to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner…

…dismissing stimulative policies as a ‘sugar high,’ the structural view has dominated both the media and the practical policy debate. But… the real story of the past seven years is that the Great Recession was just really, really big. As the recovery continues, the shifts are melting away… [and] things are going right back to normal. 1) College graduates are getting white-collar jobs…. 2) People are moving out of their parents’ basements…. 3) Millennials are buying cars…. 4) Retailers are raising wages…. 5) Everyone is moving to the suburbs…. Of course, there are still a lot of problems. To say the recession is a passing phenomenon that the country is recovering from is sometimes taken as a full-pollyanna sign or a denial of one’s right to complain about broad social problems in the United States. Do not make this mistake! Think back to 2007, before the recession started. America had a lot of problems back then, ranging from high child poverty to mass incarceration to a shockingly inefficient health-care system…. But pretty much everything that made 2011 seem significantly different from 2007 now looks to be a consequence of the ups and downs of the business cycle.”