Putting the Recession in Context

Google documents has a pretty cool gadget for looking at time-series data. Check it out below. Move the window sliders to narrow the view and then move the view over the past dips in the GDP. What was a huge drop at the time is now only a drop in the bucket. What will a big recession look like now? This is the Google Spreadsheet, with data and the gadget in a nicer larger view.