That’s a pretty optimistic way of describing those curves.

The “worst recession” will improve when we have people in charge who aren’t virulently hostile to the private sector and private wealth. Or we can drag it on for ten years through assorted socialist dead ends like the original Depression.

In 1960, something like 9 percent of the population was 65 or older. In 2011, this number was about 13 percent. Remember, we’re talking percentages all the way through this.

There’s more to the increase in dependency than this. Fact is, we have decades of politicians buying votes with government handouts, and the result now is a Federal government where most of the budget is simply passing out checks for one benefit or another. And trillion dollar deficits.

The real number is more like 22 percent of that 47 percent segment.

Stop listening to idiots.

More complicated units, but the same basic curve. This one goes back further in time.

How many recessions were there during this timeline? Shouldn’t the overall trend in a healthy system be flat, with peaks during bad times, and recovery to normal during good times?