This is inaccurate, or misleading at best. "It has nothing on the recessions of the past" is only true if you're looking at the pre-WW2 period. Compared to recessions since then, this is the most severe and long-lasting. There has been no recession since the Great Depression where unemployment has stayed as high as it is for so long.
Economists spoke of a Great Moderation that had occurred thanks to their ideological theorizing, but that is just an unfunny punchline to a joke now.
It's plainly obvious that I'm thinking of the entire economic history of the United States.
If you think this recession is bad, look at recessions before modern economic theory came about. That's what I'm trying to get at.
It makes absolutely no sense to throw out sound, proven macroeconomic theory because of a regulatory experiment gone wrong. I'd say it was that macroeconomic knowledge that prevented that mess from being a total disaster. And now people want to throw that economic knowledge out in favor of ridiculous shit like the gold standard, or MORE deregulation, or on the left twisted ineffective versions of laborism, or whatever. Bleh.
Economists spoke of a Great Moderation that had occurred thanks to their ideological theorizing, but that is just an unfunny punchline to a joke now.