Recession on track to be longest in postwar period

Factory jobs disappeared.
Inflation soared.
Unemployment climbed to alarming levels.
The hungry lined up at soup kitchens.

It wasn't the Great Depression.

It was the 1981-82 recession, widely considered America's worst since the depression.

That painful time was during ronnie raygun's insanity and is a grim marker of how bad things can get.

Yet the current recession could slice deeper into the U.S. economy.

If it lasts into April — and it surely will — this one will go on record as the longest in the postwar era.