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All those toxic and non-performing real estate loans out there, which have still not been foreclosed or written down, continue to deflate much of the wealth, because their presence continues to depress overall real estate values. Once these toxic mortgages are drained out of the system, the real price of real estate may then be re-established, and we shall have a “new normal”. This allows a slower but more orderly growth of new construction, or rehabilitation of existing housing, both major drivers of any employment recovery, leading back to a healthier overall employment picture. But first, enormous numbers of restrictive government actions will also have to be reversed, both as regulations and as taxation, and imposed mandates that have no rational basis in fact. In fact, there are a LOT of toxic factors that are paralyzing recovery right now, much like what fed the Great Depression from 1933 through the Second World War. The New Deal kept trying to “fix” things, and only made the mess worse and more tangled, until the demands of wartime mobilization made much of the regulations either dead letter, or modified so much as to remove most of their former restrictiveness. After the war was over, a lot (though by no means all) of the New Deal was repealed, often over the objection of then-President Harry Truman. The effects of that boom were felt through most of the Eisenhower years (which had a couple of slowdowns of its own, but only for a year or two at a time).

In retrospect, that was kind of a “Golden Age”, though not recognized at the time.

Then we got Kennedy-Johnson and the “Great Society” the effects of which STILL drag on the economy, through a vast expansion of the welfare state. For example, the “War on Poverty” contributed almost the entire cost of our national debt (yes, the $16 trillion or so), essentially, we have done it all on borrowed money, and what do we have to show for it. The money is still borrowed, and hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.

“Once these toxic mortgages are drained out of the system,...”

How long is that going to take? I’ve read in some places that housing prices may not recover for another 10 or 15 years.

The effects of that boom were felt through most of the Eisenhower years (which had a couple of slowdowns of its own, but only for a year or two at a time).
In retrospect, that was kind of a “Golden Age”, though not recognized at the time.

You're not kidding. I grew up and entered the workforce then and now, in reminiscence, realize how fortunate I was.