How long has this reccession being going on?

[nick__45]

I am thinking 2006 to present and I don't think we're in any recovery state because people still loose jobs, house still get foreclosed, and there are still bail-out. Wasn't the Depression only last 4-5 years? How can a recession last longer than the depression?

[Homebody]

The recesssion is over, don't you know?

Seriously there are formulas for recessions and supposedly it was over in 2009. People lose job, foreclosures, bailouts, yes.... but not a recession or depression according to economic formulas. We are in a "jobless recovery".

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Wasn't the Depression only last 4-5 years? How can a recession last longer than the depression?

Most people date the beginning of the Great Depression in the US with September 1929. I don't think anyone would mark it ended before the US was in World War II, officially December 1941. Some would not say it really ended until after the end of that war.

[maat55]

It will be around for quite some time, we are using the same Keynesian solutions that were implemented during the Depression and Japanese lost decades.

[snafu]

The Japanese stock market [Nikkei]and housing bubble crashed in 1989 and Nikkei and banks have still not recovered. Some international writers are suggesting it will take the USA 35 yrs. to get back to 2006 levels. Some countries are reluctant to buy American debt as they don't know where the next default will arise. There is no confidence in the SEC.

[cjscully]

IMHO "recession" and "depression" are semantics at this point. The economy will remain unhealthy and unstable until more people are working and producing products that will be purchased domestically and abroad.

The debt driven consumerism that drove the economy for the last couple decades is a failure.

[fiscallyprudent]

If home prices do not stabilize, and if we continue seeing foreclosures driving down the prices of homes, I don't see an immediate end to this crisis, which has been so profound. You have to keep in mind that home values came down some 30-50% since 2007. If consumers have lost a good part of their home value, how can they have confidence to go buy products and help drive the economy?

On the other hand, the same is true with small businesses. Because consumers have lost part of their spending power, they're not willing to buy as many products from small businesses. As a result they're forced to lay off employees, or close their doors to new ones, since their profit margins are not where they expect to see them.

[snafu]

The housing market bubble burst as do all out of whack values. People who didn't qualify for traditional mortgages were lured into buying homes they couldn't afford. Mortgage brokers who work on commission are evaluated on how much they sell. People who had equity in their homes were convinced to borrow against that equity. A lot of the 'equity' they were borrowing was only due to the bubble. They believed the hype that the value of their home would continue to escalate to cover their consumer loans. Over-riding all of that, the mortgages were being re-packaged and sold to investors all over the world as Double A [safe] investments for risk adverse savers.

While the Enron fiasco should have set off alarm bells, either blindness or greed had grabbed hold at SEC. The millions of people world wide that have had their retirement plans destroyed will not soon forget the financial trauma they endure. Did you notice Ireland has recently had to accept IMF borrowing and the stringent rules that go with it?

The job loss is spread nearly everywhere. In China food prices have zoomed 10%, 1.2 billion people are worried, the government is terrified that they will have riots if people go hungry. That problem seemed solved 15 years ago.