While the government is trying to be Dr. Phil, the longest-serving official in the Federal Reserve says the economy will likely start to turn around sometime this summer (via Suitably Flip).

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern told the Wall Street Journal today:

My forecast is actually for some improvement beginning around the middle of the year. That doesn’t mean we’re going to take off to exceedingly rapid growth.

Improvement around the middle of the year? That’s long before the vast majority of the stimulus money will hit, even for those so-called shovel ready projects. So did we even need it? What will Barack Obama’s argument for this reforms in education, health care and the environment be if he can’t take aim at the “economic crisis?”

He also slammed those alarmists who constantly compare this economic downturn to the Great Depression (which seems to always be the left’s mantra: “The worst economy since the Great Depression” was used during the 1992 presidential campaign even though economic data show the economy turned around before we elected Bill Clinton):

For those of us who were around for ‘80-’82 and ‘73-’75, what’s happening in the economy and a lot of the rhetoric that goes with it rings more familiar.

There’s a familiar ring to Stern’s statements. To quote myself:

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, of the 12 recessions since the Great Depression, the longest two lasted a mere 16 months, from November 1973 to March 1975 and from July 1981 to November 1982.

Our two most recent were half as long, spanning eight-month periods from July 1990 to March 1991 and from March 2001 to November 2001. The average recession length since the Great Depression is just under 10 and a half months.