Felix Salmon fears it's upon us:
Is there anything the government can do to bring unemployment down? Or is it now too late? If we are indeed in the early months of a double-dip recession, than I think it is too late: unemployment is more likely to go up than it is down from here. And even if the economy’s still managing to eke out modest growth, I don’t see much hope that the unemployment rate will come down to a remotely acceptable level any time soon. Realistically, America’s unemployed are here to stay. And we’re only just beginning to understand how that’s going to affect the political economy of the nation.