I’ve always contended that this recession was part of a normal business cycle. I still think it is, but with one significant difference. In most cycles recovery includes a return to employment levels characteristic of the previous expansion. I think this one will see a much weaker jobs recovery, similar to what happened after the 2000-2001 recession. The roots of this trace back to the technological revolution we went through in the late Nineties. That change made a lot of jobs redundant. We didn’t need as many clerks, or auto workers or airline personnel, etc. But because the economy was booming, this redundancy was masked and we did not cut the jobs that were now excess. Come the recession and we did. Much of the job loss in this recession stems from the recognition that these folks are not needed anymore. This whole effect is intensified by the globalization of the economy by which additional jobs are shipped to lower cost countries. So as we come out of this recession (and it appears we’re getting close to the turning point), the recovery will be less robust than we could hope for. The unemployment rate may go down but not by as much as in the the average cycle. For real estate, this means a less robust recovery as well. Sales are picking up and will continue to do so, but there will not be the kind of market we saw around the turn of the century. Full recovery will require that we invent new industries to generate new types of jobs.