What is the difference between a depression and a recession?

Question

Are we in one or the other?

How do we get out? How long will it take??

Answer 1

They are totally unrelated in context.  We are currently in a recession.  A recession occurs whenever total employment and total production decrease.  It is actually fairly common and required in the business cycle.  Our capitalist economy is based on periods of highs and lows.  recession does not mean anything really bad, just not as good as other times.  It will take a few more years to get out, no one can predict it because it has many variables, as well as economists continually disagreeing on the qualifications of a recession.

Answer 2

A recession is when you are out of work, and a depression is when I am out of work.

Yes we are currently in a recession.

Answer 3

A recession is a business slowdown.  A depression is a very severe recession that involves either ultra inflation or ultra deflation.  Example:  in pre-n**i Germany one needed a wheel barrow filled with money to buy a loaf of bread.  In the USA, a penny had a lot of buying power but a loaf of bread in the 1920s cost about the same as it did in the 1970s.  One depression, two results.  In the USA, people panicked and demanded their money from banks when the stock market failed who could not sell off investments fast enough to pay them (many in the stock market) causing bank failures and a chain reaction.  Currency was fixed by the amount of gold so things fell apart quickly.  

a sustained economic recession in which a nation's Gross National Product (GNP) is falling and marked by low production and sales and a high rate of business failures and unemployment.  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/e...

A recession is generally associated with a decline in a country's real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

We are not currently in a recession but it is borderline.

Answer 4

A recession is where you  see signs of a depression

How long it takes  well an example in the early 90's we were in  a  recession but when  Dot com  business took off in the  mid 90's it ended  the threat of a depression. Right now  I'm really unsure where it is we are. State economics  say we are not in a  depression because looking  at the  market.. If you look at job loss you may  see signs  of a  depression  SO it is a good   question.

How  long  it lasts?

In the  20's and  30's it ended  because the  war  gave  people  Jobs. So getting  people to work  is  ultimately the  best  way out. But I cannot say  how long it lasts but it does answer how it ends

Any help?

Answer 5

A recession is when people are standing outside buildings on ledges, a depression is when they are jumping.

Answer 6

Recession = inflation (too much money) + high unemployment

Depression = no money + high unemployment

We're actually easing out of the recession right now, but it's too early to tell what's gonna happen.