One chart never ceased to amaze me - the one that shows just how unimpressive the current 'second longest in modern history' recovery (and only 9 months shy of it being the 'first longest') has been, and just how sticky the adverse shocks impacts can be in modern crises that can be best described by the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) environment:
The fact that the current recovery cycle has been weak is only one part of the story, however, that would be less worrying if not for the second part. Namely, that almost every successive recovery cycle in the past three decades has been weaker than the previous one.
Here is a handy summary of the recovery cycles in the last four recessions based on annual data, for real GDP and real GDP PPP-adjusted:
