The sorts of things that get past a New York Times magazine fact-checker:

If you’ve recently flipped to Lou Dobbs on CNN or opened the pages of a liberal political journal like The American Prospect, you might have the impression that America in the Bush years has slipped into a kind of Dickensian darkness, a period of unbridled greed and economic deprivation on a scale not seen in this country since the Great Depression. Like so many things in politics, this has some basis in truth, but only some.

“Some basis in truth”? Come on, man, the comparison is laughable. Checking out the most recent economic report from Bloomberg:

The government reported last week that employers created 157,000 new jobs in May, compared with a gain of 80,000 in April, while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.5 percent. Job growth this year has averaged 133,000 a month, compared with 189,000 a month in 2006. Hourly wages grew 3.8 percent in May from the same time a year ago, compared with a nine-year high of 4.3 percent reached in December… Some companies are hiring. Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, said last month it will expand its Fargo, North Dakota, campus to add space for 575 workers. Microsoft is also in the middle of a $1 billion expansion to its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to add space for an additional 12,000 employees.

Is this an ideal economy? No, of course not. GDP growth was quite slow the first quarter. Fuel costs are high, the housing market boom is over and is deflating, rapidly in some areas, mildly in others. The American auto industry is having a tough time coping with foreign competition. The dollar is weaker than we would like, as is the trade imbalance.

But let’s not confuse “not as good as we hoped for” with “absolute crisis”; the Great Depression had bread lines, Hoovervilles in Central Park, stockbrokers leaping from windows, Okies heading west, etc.

Matt Bai says the comparison to the Great Depression is “not very helpful hyperbole,” but I think that’s too mild a rebuke.

He also notes:

It’s not that the poor are getting poorer, or that more Americans are falling below the poverty line, so much as it is that poor Americans are falling further and further behind those who succeed.

We’re more envious of the Bill Gateses, Donald Trumps, Paris Hiltons than we were before. You know, the kind of people who can build enormous mansions, make $55,000 just for a speech, or spend $400 on a haircut… like the subject of Bai’s profile.