Former Oregon state economist Tom Potiowsky came by The Oregonian the other day to give a talk, and he had one slide in particular that I wanted to pass on.

It shows the relative loss of Oregon jobs in all of the national downturns since World War II -- and the worst one, in Oregon at least, was in the early 1980s. It may be common to describe our current economic troubles as the "Great Recession," and I know I have been guilty of saying I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime.

However, Oregon had a larger percentage loss in jobs in the early 1980s when there was another housing crash and our timber industry -- which was then a larger chunk of the state's economy -- started shedding tens of thousands of jobs. That truly was a "Great Recession" that changed Oregon forever. Thousands left the state and many stable, formerly middle-class communities were ripped apart.

State policymakers pushed harder to diversify the economy and timber communities never again enjoyed anything near wage parity with the Portland area.

I don't mean to diminish the depth of our current economic troubles, which certainly feels like a Great Recession. But you don't have to have lived through the depression of the 1930s to have seen worse in Oregon.