Industrial production is 7 below its pre crisis peak in 2008. This, together with the decline in manufactured goods as a share of total exports, from 54 a decade ago to 37 today, points to a substantial loss of competitiveness.

Despite stronger growth in 2013, net monthly job creation, at about 193,000, was only slightly above its 2012 level (186,000) and still below its pre recession average of 200,000. Employment at the end of 2013 was still 1.1 million short of its pre recession peak regaining this peak requires 7.7 million more jobs, in addition to absorbing subsequent monthly entrants to the labor force.

The cost is eight million jobs in the US alone, with employment falling 6 from its peak and in a major departure from other post 1945 recessions remaining 5 below that peak today, 31 months after the crisis broke in earnest.

The cyclical challenges, in particular, are proving to be more vexing than anticipated. Though exports have declined considerably from their pre crisis peak of 35 of GDP, they continue to account for about 24 , leaving China exposed to the global growth cycle especially to markets in the developed world, where demand is exceptionally weak.

He also pledged that relations with Russia would return not just to their pre crisis level, but even higher.

FLORENCE Major economic crises are inevitably also structural milestones. There is no simple return to a pre crisis normalcy.

The age standardized mortality rate for women of all ages fell to 2.2 per 100,000 women in 2003, much lower than the pre screening programme peak of 5.0 per 100,000 in 1985.

We are still debating peak oil, but we have definitely reached peak child.

Moreover, the global financial crisis has created new puzzles. GDP in nearly all advanced economies is currently far below pre crisis projections, yet few expect the gap ever to be bridged.

And at this time, when I was going through what I call my pre mid life crisis, Africa was a mess.

Though such a scenario was inconceivable five years ago, when the Greek crisis first erupted, the term Grexit entered the European lexicon soon after, when the crisis reached a new peak. But European leaders seemed to recognize the implications of allowing a country even small, crisis stricken Greece to exit the eurozone.

Taken together, these steps address the core problems the stigma associated in the past with IMF conditionality, the availability of early pre crisis financing, and the overall size of rescue packages  that have sometimes diminished the effectiveness of the Fund s role as a crisis lender. Emerging markets that approach the IMF early on for pre crisis financing will find shelter from the winds of global deleveraging, which in turn will help contain the spread of the crisis.

Taken together, these steps address the core problems the stigma associated in the past with IMF conditionality, the availability of early pre crisis financing, and the overall size of rescue packages that have sometimes diminished the effectiveness of the Fund s role as a crisis lender. Emerging markets that approach the IMF early on for pre crisis financing will find shelter from the winds of global deleveraging, which in turn will help contain the spread of the crisis.

And you peak out.

Unemployment is higher today than it was in the pre crisis period (9.1 percent in 2003 as compared to 4.7 percent in 1997).

The overall level of household indebtedness stood at 113 of disposable personal income in mid 2012 down 21 percentage points from its pre crisis peak of 134 in 2007, but still well above the 1970 1999 norm of around 75 . In other words, Americans have much farther to go on the road to balance sheet repair which hardly suggests a temporary, or cyclical, shortfall in consumer demand.

And so, 25 years ago, there was a peak oil just like, in the 1920s, there was a peak coal and a hundred years before that, there was a peak wood.

Well, I think out ahead of us a few decades is peak gas, and beyond that, peak renewables.

The excitement reached its peak.

Peak fitting and data analysis

But 280 is the peak.

We have reached peak child.

Offshoring dropped during the Great Recession that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, but quickly rebounded, accelerating past pre crisis levels. For the moment, the return of manufacturing to rich countries remains a prediction, not an outcome.

A couple of years ago, forecasters were confident that global imbalances would reemerge once the crisis passed. That now seems unlikely Neither the US nor China is going back to its pre crisis growth rate or spending pattern.

Compared to previous global downturns triggered by a financial crisis, the global economy bounced back robustly. Trade and output levels exceeded pre crisis levels in most countries a few years ago, and global poverty continues to decline rapidly.

According to United States Census data, household income fell in 2011 for the fourth consecutive year. Unemployment remains persistently high, despite the 787 billion stimulus package in 2009, and house prices, though recovering slowly, remain far below their pre 2008 peak.

Because the dominant narrative still maintains that the pre crisis period was normal, at least in terms of the growth pattern in the real economy, the perceived challenge is to restore growth according to the pre crisis pattern. Unfortunately, this narrative cannot explain why, particularly in the advanced countries, growth is faltering and the employment engines have largely shut down.

With household consumption accounting for about 70 of the US economy, that 2.7 percentage point gap between pre crisis and post crisis trends has been enough to knock 1.9 percentage points off the post crisis trend in real GDP growth. Look no further for the cause of unacceptably high US unemployment.

Southern eurozone countries such as Italy and Spain have suffered from rising competition with China in textiles and light manufacturing industries. But just as the pre crisis credit boom masked underlying structural problems, post crisis credit constraints have greatly amplified the downturn.

While the short term unemployment rate (those unemployed for 26 weeks or less) has fallen back to its 2001 2007 pre crisis average, the long term unemployment rate remains higher than at any time since the measure was introduced in 1948. The long term unemployed account for about 36 of total unemployment, down from nearly 46 in March 2011 but still far above the previous peak of 26 reached 30 years ago.

But by reducing your energy use, pretty much at the peak times usually when you have you air conditioning on, or other times like that this generates the peak power at the peak usage time, so it's very complementary in that sense.

Despite unprecedentedly low interest rates, investment in most advanced countries is significantly below where it was in the years prior to the 2008 crisis, while employment rates remain stubbornly low. And even investment in the pre crisis period was unimpressive, given low prevailing interest rates.

Still, overall, business investment excluding construction has returned to 10 of GDP (from 10.6 before the crisis). With so much excess capacity in real estate, confidence will not recover to its pre crisis level anytime soon, regardless of what is done to the banking sector.

So about seven years, eight years to reach your peak, and then gradually you fall off your peak, until you go back to the starting point.

This is about 1990 peak of the crack epidemic.

But of those, 65 have already passed their peak.

because the real peak is hidden around the corner.

The average reduction was 40 since the national peak.

The average reduction was 40 since the national peak.

The Fed s tapering merely slows the growth of its balance sheet. The authorities would still have to sell 3 trillion of bonds to return to the pre crisis status quo.

Today, the real price of oil is nearly twice as high as it was at the peak of that crisis, but we have seen nothing like the images from 1973 5. Mostly we are not even reminded of them.

Indeed, at the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, gold prices fell sharply a few times. In an extreme credit crunch, leveraged purchases of gold cause forced sales, because any price correction triggers margin calls.

But when he reached the mountain peak, he found the peak covered with countless flags of world conquerors before him, each one claiming 'I was here first' ...

When reality proved otherwise, the return of the past was not abandoned, but merely postponed. Continuing to assume the resumption of pre crisis growth was necessary to justify postponing hard decisions.

A similar sense of déjà vu has pervaded economic forecasting since the global economic crisis began a half decade ago. Yet policymakers remain convinced that the economic growth model that prevailed during the pre crisis years is still their best guide, at least in the near future.