Why So Many Books About Depression?
Depression seems to be on a lot of people's minds these days. I'm not talking about the kind of depression that makes you feel sad. I'm talking about economic depression. I've never seen more books about economic depressions as we're seeing lately. And it's not just the "Great Depression."
For example, the Wall Street Journal just published a review of a book about the Depression of 1837. And James Grant - well known editor and publisher of "Grant's Interest Rate Observer" - is currently writing a book about the Depression of 1921.
What's up with all this Depression stuff? Could it be that "Depression" is on everyone's mind these days? If that's true, it's understandable. After all, some people have been calling what we're going through right now a Depression. Do you think it is - a Depression I mean?
Then again, some are predicting that we're entering a new recession - right now, even as we speak.
(Of course, there are still those who keep saying things are just fine and the economy keeps chugging along here in the U.S.)
I don't know for sure who's right, but I do know this: recessions never existed until after the Great Depression. Yes, it's true. Before the Great Depression, whenever the economy slowed down a lot - to the point where people were thrown out of work, couldn't find jobs, even had trouble feeding themselves - it was called a Depression. You can look it up. Try to find any reference to the "Recession of 18__." You won't find it.
The idea of a recession didn't come up until after World War II. After the war, the government got involved - like they get involved in just about everything these days - and decided that they were going to create this "Depression-lite" thing called a "recession." Why? I don't know, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that more and more the government has gotten itself involved in the economy. And with their involvement - lo and behold - the number of times that the economy has slowed down and gone into reverse increased. And, frankly, I don't think the government wanted each reverse to be called a "Depression" as it would have been called if not for this new "recession" idea.
Heck, even the last recession - the one that started in 2007 and ended (according to the government) in 2009 wasn't called a depression. Oh, it was nasty all right. But instead of calling it a depression, it was called the "Great Recession."
Wait. Does that mean we've now got four different names for the government to choose from when the economy falters: recession, Great Recession, depression, Great Depression?
Well, it's always complicated when the government gets involved, isn't it? They just can't stop making things up: laws, regulations, names for recessions and depression - the list goes on and on.
(And they can't stop hiring more bureaucrats to create new names for all the things the government creates and to monitor it all and to create reports on all that stuff they create, make up and monitor.)
Now I'm thinking that what we need are new terms for when things go right - not that I expect things will go right in the near future. Come to think of it, why doesn't the government have special names for good times? "Economic boom" is more of a catch-all. Maybe they should create names like "boomlet," "Boom," Big Boom." Any other names you can think of?
But back to all the Depression talk: I think it's clearly on people's minds and I think it's on people's minds because people think we're either in a Depression or are close to slipping into one. The fact is, until everything crashed in 2007 - 2008 people were living in a world where you could pretty much get anything you wanted by simply swiping your credit card. And even though banks are irresponsibly pushing even more credit cards on people these days, I think the days of living on credit will soon be drawing to a close. So then what?
When the days of easy credit end, people will have to learn to save up to get things they really want, rather than get into debt to buy what they want. And that's going to be a painful adjustment for a lot of us. But not to worry, in the end, it'll do us all a lot of good.
Of course, there's that little matter of a Depression we may all have to get through first.
For example, the Wall Street Journal just published a review of a book about the Depression of 1837. And James Grant - well known editor and publisher of "Grant's Interest Rate Observer" - is currently writing a book about the Depression of 1921.
What's up with all this Depression stuff? Could it be that "Depression" is on everyone's mind these days? If that's true, it's understandable. After all, some people have been calling what we're going through right now a Depression. Do you think it is - a Depression I mean?
Then again, some are predicting that we're entering a new recession - right now, even as we speak.
(Of course, there are still those who keep saying things are just fine and the economy keeps chugging along here in the U.S.)
I don't know for sure who's right, but I do know this: recessions never existed until after the Great Depression. Yes, it's true. Before the Great Depression, whenever the economy slowed down a lot - to the point where people were thrown out of work, couldn't find jobs, even had trouble feeding themselves - it was called a Depression. You can look it up. Try to find any reference to the "Recession of 18__." You won't find it.
The idea of a recession didn't come up until after World War II. After the war, the government got involved - like they get involved in just about everything these days - and decided that they were going to create this "Depression-lite" thing called a "recession." Why? I don't know, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that more and more the government has gotten itself involved in the economy. And with their involvement - lo and behold - the number of times that the economy has slowed down and gone into reverse increased. And, frankly, I don't think the government wanted each reverse to be called a "Depression" as it would have been called if not for this new "recession" idea.
Heck, even the last recession - the one that started in 2007 and ended (according to the government) in 2009 wasn't called a depression. Oh, it was nasty all right. But instead of calling it a depression, it was called the "Great Recession."
Wait. Does that mean we've now got four different names for the government to choose from when the economy falters: recession, Great Recession, depression, Great Depression?
Well, it's always complicated when the government gets involved, isn't it? They just can't stop making things up: laws, regulations, names for recessions and depression - the list goes on and on.
(And they can't stop hiring more bureaucrats to create new names for all the things the government creates and to monitor it all and to create reports on all that stuff they create, make up and monitor.)
Now I'm thinking that what we need are new terms for when things go right - not that I expect things will go right in the near future. Come to think of it, why doesn't the government have special names for good times? "Economic boom" is more of a catch-all. Maybe they should create names like "boomlet," "Boom," Big Boom." Any other names you can think of?
But back to all the Depression talk: I think it's clearly on people's minds and I think it's on people's minds because people think we're either in a Depression or are close to slipping into one. The fact is, until everything crashed in 2007 - 2008 people were living in a world where you could pretty much get anything you wanted by simply swiping your credit card. And even though banks are irresponsibly pushing even more credit cards on people these days, I think the days of living on credit will soon be drawing to a close. So then what?
When the days of easy credit end, people will have to learn to save up to get things they really want, rather than get into debt to buy what they want. And that's going to be a painful adjustment for a lot of us. But not to worry, in the end, it'll do us all a lot of good.
Of course, there's that little matter of a Depression we may all have to get through first.
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