What, precisely, is a 'depression?'

Quote from TGregg:

US maximum unemployment rate during the Great Depression:

24.9%

GDP deltas during the same:

1930 -8.6%
1931 -6.4%
1932 -13%
1933 -1.3%
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According to John Williams of Shadow Stats... the current REAL unemployment rate is 16%.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(economics)

In economics, a depression is a sustained, long downturn in one or more economies. It is more severe than a recession, which is seen as a normal downturn in the business cycle.

Considered a rare but extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by abnormal increases in unemployment, restriction of credit, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies, reduced amounts of trade and commerce, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations, mostly devaluations. Price deflation or hyperinflation are also common elements of a depression.
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Quote from tomu:

When your neighbor loses his job it is a Recession.

When you lose your job it is a Depression.
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I imagine this is closer to the truth than any other.

regards
f9
 
There seems to be an agreed-upon set of measurements that can be used to define "recession". I think the term "depression" is more of a lay term, rather than proper economical term.

I recall an anecdote where a judge was asked what pornography was. He couldn't say with any precision what it was, but did comment, "I'd know it if I saw it."
 
Quote from zdreg:

"50% of the US population is unemployed"
that is an impossible statistics. in the great depression at the peak the unemployment rate was 25%. children retirees and housewives are included in the population statistics but are not inc. in the unemployment rate.
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I'm aware, but I wasn't talking at all about the unemployment rate, here. That's what the depression was. Half of the population didn't have a job. This says nothing about the unemployment rate.
 
Quote from bwolinsky:

A depression I take to mean: deep recession.

Imagine 50% of the US population unemployed. That's a depression. You're waiting in line at soup kitchens because you have nothing. This, my friends, is a depression.

Since we're nowhere close to that, I'd say we're far from the soup kitchens and Hoovervilles that marked the Great Depression.
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That is a the 30's measure. In today's world when 50% of the US population are employed in jobs funded by FED and Treasury loans that is a depression. All investment banks, US auto manufactures and soon to be aircraft manufacturers, home builders and states are heading in that direction.

USSA here we come.
 
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