ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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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.'