Milton Friedman's 'pluck' gives hope to economy

The US unemployment rate skyrocketed to 8.5 percent in March, and there is every reason to expect that it will soon be above 10 percent. Given how bad things are, it will probably break the postwar record of 10.8 percent, set in late 1982.

Even if we don't challenge that record, this recession is already worse than its 1980s counterpart. Back then, unemployment had been quite high for many years before it spiked.

The unemployment rate in late 1982 was just 2.3 percentage points higher than it had been a year earlier.