Making the rounds on the Internet has been Nancy Pelosi’s chart that demonstrates the severity of this recession as opposed to the last two. I would be putting my blogging license in jeopardy if I didn’t reproduce it.

There are all sorts of problems with this chart, not the least of which is that it selectively compares this recession to two much milder recessions. Fortunately, Justin Fox at Time has redone the graph and layered in more recessions as well as putting the data points in percentage terms so the distortion of a larger workforce is eliminated.

The lesson which we all knew anyway is to trust very little of what a politician tells you.