Not that long ago, the U.S. was facing a fiscal cliff, with the government at risk of running out of money and the world expected to end shortly thereafter. It was a big deal at the time—mitigated by the fact that the only real problem was the inability of the U.S. Congress to agree.

Whenever the market drops, I get calls asking me to explain why. There’s no short answer, of course, but today is an interesting time to look at short-term market behavior and try to understand what makes it tick.

Yesterday’s post on jobs made some interesting points about the relative performance of the economy today and in previous decades, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses of the current recovery.

A look at financial figures over the same time periods offers a different but equally interesting set of observations.

Given some of the comparisons I’ve made lately between the 1990s, 2000s, and today, I thought it would be enlightening to look at various data points from different time periods to see how they stack up. After starting to compile the information, though, I realized that there are a lot of interesting comparisons to be drawn, enough to make this a series.

The question about the economy lately has been whether or not we’re looking at a sustained slowdown.

A decline in expected corporate earnings has often heralded recessions, and with disappointing retail sales and employment numbers, many believe that the U.S. is looking at a significant slowdown at best, another recession at worst.

Reading the papers this morning, I realized we’d hit a milestone: there were no articles about the economy on the front pages of either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

I can’t remember the last time that happened since the financial crisis. Nothing about weak numbers, or expected doom, or anything on the economy at all. We’re back to politics, foreign affairs, the Masters, and a business deal or two.

As I mentioned yesterday, it’s worth comparing the current recovery with the past two, to get some sense of perspective, and that extends well beyond comparing the employment numbers.

In fact, by looking at the fundamental sources of growth in each era, we can get a much better idea of how healthy—or not—the current recovery is.

Why all the angst over the weak jobs number? Much of it is based on the assumption that a decline of that magnitude, especially after a very strong run, means we’re moving into shaky economic territory.

We might be, but let’s check the data before we get too upset.

In the interviews I’ve given recently with various financial media, the questions have centered on earnings season—the time every quarter when companies report how much money they made, in revenue, and kept, in earnings, in the last quarter.

This matters, certainly for the stock market, which is priced off of those earnings, but also for the economy as a whole. If the economy is doing well, companies should be doing well.

The different reactions to Friday’s weak employment report got me thinking about how our underlying expectations can affect our decision-making processes—especially when it comes to investments.

My response to the employment report was to look at other employment data and decide the bad news was probably a blip. A friend of mine, on the other hand, took it as confirmation of all his worst fears. You can certainly see where each of us is coming from, in the larger sense.