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What is the technical definition of “depression”?

Started by morganb · 7 months ago

A guest post from Constantine von Hoffman, veteran business journalist and author of the blog CollateralDamage.biz, a humorous look at marketing, business and his dog.

“People have begun to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.” — Tom Lehrer

It is difficult to believe but earlier this year people were still debating whether or not we were [...] ... Continue reading »

5 comments

  • Don

    7 months ago

    Technically, a depression occurs when the economy contracts 10%. In the early 30's, we contracted 30%, thus a Great Depression. This country has seen many depressions, but the one in the 30's was oviously the worst. I think we contracted 4 or 5% in the recession of '82 or '83.

    We'll be lucky if we don't go further than that this time.
    reply
  • CollateralDamage

    7 months ago

    technically, you're right. :D
    reply
  • Don

    7 months ago

    Um, you want to ADD those. It equals 29.3 percent. No we weren't in a "recession", we were in DEPRESSION.

    HELLO, S & P was off 89% from it's high and unemployment was somewhere between 25 and 33 percent.

    "So there really is no technical definition for a depression." Uh, yes there is, just like there is a techincal definition of a recession, which is two contiguous quarters of contracting GDP.

    Riduclous comment.
    reply
  • CollateralDamage

    7 months ago

    i think i wasn't clear in my comment. i was trying to say you were right and I agree with your point. it probably read like i was making fun of you. apologies.
    reply
  • Don

    7 months ago

    Collateral, I wasn't pointing the finger at you. Constantine didn't fully upload the article. He added more. You're cool, my finger pointing was at HIM!!!
    reply

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