Back when the economy tanked in 2008-9, economists like Krugzilla were noting that an inadequate response to this crisis could lead to a "lost decade" like Japan suffered through. Low, sluggish growth and relatively high unemployment became "the new normal".
One of the threats Krugman talked about was inadequate Fed policy. The Japanese central bank made very poor decisions during their decade of poor growth. Luckily, our central bank has been proactive and staved off utter collapse and stagnation. It has been the ECB that has screwed everything up for all of us.
Nevertheless we are stuck in a slow economy. It's not as bad as the '08-09 cycle, but it's not good.
One question is whether or not people are beginning to assume that this really is "the new normal". People have assumed that Obama is outperforming the employment numbers because of a combination of people still blaming Bush, his personal popularity and Mitt's personal unpopularity.
But it may also be that people have simply internalized a diminished state of the economy.
Purely conjecture, but you have to wonder.
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