This isn’t your grandparent’s (or great-grandparent’s) depression.  That’s right!  I said the “D” word.  I think, short of political cowardice, the government is going to have to call this what it is.  Of course, they won’t do that yet.  It seems these things are easier to determine after they have been going on for some time.  It took nearly a year, and the crash of Wall Street in October, to force the governments of the major economies to spit out the dreaded “R” word.  Now, depending on the organization, there are a couple of definitions for a recession.  Not so for a depression.  Ever since the Mother of all Depressions, The Great Depression, no politician has used the term.  We had a few before then though.  The Long Depression of 1873 to 1879 was The Great Depression until the 1930’s.  Is it possible that we have avoided them since then?  Learned our lessons?  Doubtful.  I think politicians just fear public retribution if a catastrophe of that magnitude occurs on their watch.  Murray N. Rothbard referred to the 81 – 83 recession as a depression in his Introduction to the Fourth Edition of his book, America’s Great Depression.  Could it have been?  I’m no economist, so I don’t know.  I have read articles where some of today’s economists are stepping up and saying that we are now in a depression.  The comparison’s to the two are striking.  In fact, and again, I’m no expert, the largest difference I’ve been able to find, is that their are protections in place to protect people from losing their savings and governments are jumping into action to keep the banks afloat, unlike the Hoover Administration.  But are those measures going to prevent a depression, or just minimize the length of time we’re in it.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.