October 11, 2009
Britain's Central Planning Death Panels
October 11, 2009
Free Market M.D.
October 11, 2009
Economies of Scale in Compliance
October 11, 2009
Balan's Challenge
October 10, 2009
The Pleasure of Telling Others What to Do
October 10, 2009
Gonick the Great - and How He Could Have Been Greater
October 9, 2009
More Scott Sumner
October 9, 2009
Not From The Onion
October 9, 2009
Thoughts on a Second Stimulus
Well, I don't know what differentiates the two either, but I imagine it has something to do with the way it is perceived.
Recession = bad, but not earth shattering.
Depression = earth shattering.
I'd say, from public perception, we're in a "depression."
I agree that it was a great article and appeared to be well researched with fact rather than opinion. The question that kept running through my head was how much difference high debt makes when a stock market crash hits. A country with low debt has more options to avoid a deep recession.
I was always told:
A recession is when your neighbor loses their job. A depression is when you lose your job.
I'm thinking that all the "depression" talk is really a sign of how good we have it. In the real depression, population growth ground nearly to a halt. These days, a depression is when you have to move back in with Mom and Dad, or live with a roommate.
"In the real depression, population growth ground nearly to a halt. These days, a depression is when you have to move back in with Mom and Dad, or live with a roommate."
There will be a lag in population change relative to economic factors, usually at least on the order of, oh...say...9 months. Moving in with mom and dad, as well as the general economic misery currently ravaging the country will lead to population growth slowing considerably, it'll just take a few years before the numbers are readily available.
I don't have a source for any of this, so take it with a grain of salt.
I believe that all "recessions" before the Great Depression were called "depressions". After the GD, I believe that the downturns we had no longer seemed worthy of the name "depression" so "recession was coined in its place.
Possibly, the increase in economic data after the GD led to the need to label fluctuations that previously were not named.
I think Alex J. has it exactly right. "recession' became a sort of euphemism' since, by the 1950s, the word 'depression just sounded too harsh.
By the way, before the Great Depression, such economic downturns were routinely referred to as 'busts.' 'Depression' was initially just a euphemism for a 'bust.'