economy bad, but still not as bad as 1982

One more indicator of the same thing I said a month ago...

From the AP's Jeannine Aversa in the C-J...

The contraction for the fourth quarter of 2008 had been estimated at 3.8 percent just a month ago. Then the Commerce Department raised it to an astonishing 6.2 percent Friday - the largest revision since the government started keeping records in 1976.

That was the economy's worst showing in a quarter-century and raised the prospect that the nation could suffer its worst year since 1946....

The economy has not suffered a decline for a full year since 1991, and that was just by 0.2 percent.

If the new projections prove accurate, it would mark the worst annual showing since an 11 percent plunge in 1946....

The nation's jobless rate is now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years. The Federal Reserve expects the rate to climb to close to 9 percent this year, and probably will stay elevated into 2011.

...the weakest quarterly showing since an annualized drop of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 1982, when the country was suffering through an intense recession...