Recession or Depression? Is there any real difference?
By lorelei1622
@lorelei1622 (329)
United States
March 6, 2009 7:46am CST
With the unemployment figures for February just released and having not been that low since the 1940's are we still in a recession or is it now a depression? What really is the difference? And do you have any realistic ideas on how to turn around the economy, obviously giving money to the banks back fired.And the credit card companies seem to be destroying more ad more peoples credit trying to fix themselves, looks like before it's done no one will qualify for a credit card. Do you think it will get worse before it gets better?
1 person likes this
5 responses
@gwoman2 (710)
• United States
6 Mar 09
Hi Lorelei1622,
According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition...
Depression: A reduction in activity, amount, quality, or force/A period of LOW economic activity marked especially by rising levels of unemployment.
Recession: A period of REDUCED economic activity.
Thanks Lorelei I also thought it was the same thing but apparantly it is a matter of Low and reduced difference.
~G~
@gwoman2 (710)
• United States
6 Mar 09
Lorelei, I should add that my Mother was there for the Great Depression and she told stories of standing on long, long lines waiting for small handouts of rice, bread, and basic staples! I remember a tin closet standing in a corner or our dining room with a lock on it and every few months my Mom would take out what was there and replace with freshly bought items...I always wondered about that till she explained that it was habit because of her suffering during the depression!(I was adopted, when I was 13 my Mom was about 65!)
~G~
@sukumar794 (5040)
• Thiruvananthapuram, India
7 Mar 09
Recession naturally brings in depression....it would be wise to cope up with the ordeal and hope things would ultimately change for the better.
@Arkie69 (2156)
• United States
6 Mar 09
Did you ever hear the line that says the best way to keep the wolf away from your door is to change his name to dog. When you do that the wolf no longer exists. That is exactly what they did with the depression. They changed it's name to recession so the depression no longer exists. There will never be another depression because no such critter exits anymore.
Art
@mariposaman (2959)
• Canada
7 Mar 09
Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when you lose your job.
They are just different names for the same thing, a slowdown in th economy. These cycles have been going on for hundreds of years but I do not know how to stop them. I guess the best thing to do is save a little when times are good and become debt free. That way you just weather the storm and emerge generally unscathed. Most people live from paycheck to paycheck with little though of the future.
@rakesh284 (1472)
• India
7 Mar 09
Well Recession and Depression are two different things.
It might happen that sometime or other we find them related to each other.
Recession means bad market conditions and economical crisis that has increased unemployment rate.
Depression means period when you are unhappy and depressed due to some reason.
You might be depressed due to loss of job due to recession.
I have heard that after my birthday market conditions will become stable.
Again everything will get its original motion.
I mean after April it will be fine
Hope for the best.
Have a nice life ahead
Bye
