When do we go from Recession into a Depression?

Here in Michigan the unemployment numbers are up to 7.7 percent. When do the unemployment numbers and ARM fiasco switch our State from a Recession into a Depression. It's only this Taxi Man's opinion but we are very, very close. I deal with cash flow and the cash flow has come to a cash crawl. The jobs have left and the people have no money.
My take for four days work used to be at least three hundred this last four days it was one seventy. Feeling rather stressed over our economy, I am drinking Cruzan Rum and orange juice to calm my nerves. If someone could explain to me how they figure the difference between a Recession and Depression, because it sure feels bad in Michigan.

When you are out of work, it's a depression.

look, dow. look, dow. it's doing well.....

lets forget the fact that it has been artificially pumped up by several cash dumps including the largest one today since 9/11

well...not so much for their benefit as for ours. hopefully they'll believe the lies(they don't) and not stop propping up our society's hedonistic lifestyle(they ARE stopping, and we ARE f.u.c.k.e.d.)

The 2001 recession has been predated by the MSM/Busco one year for the obvious reasons, then never mentioned again.

You're always the Last to know.

It's taken them this long to admit that there are even problems with housing and the loan industry.

They're STILL not even copping to the fact we're in a severe recession already.

I'm guessing that even if we enter a Depression, they won't EVER, EVER, EVER use that term, because of it's negative connotation.

then it's a depression. Not totally out of the realm of possibility. If the repubs win in 2008, I think it's a 100% sure thing.

that anyone currently in or associated with government would use the word "Depression". It has too many negative vibes. The best/worst you'll probably get is "Sever Recession". The words mean the same, it's only to what depth.

Hoover thought that he could prevent an economic collapse by manipulating the psychology of investors by refusing to use the term "economic panic," which was the usual term for recessions and depressions before 1929. Obviously didn't work.

it's a Depression. That's what happens when demand dries up and people go into survival mode, buying only enough food to keep themselves alive and deferring all other purchases until conditions improve.

We're very close to the conditions that create one: concentration of wealth at the top, substitution of debt for adequate wages at the bottom, and evaporating net worth as house prices deflate. The only thing holding it off is the still easy availability of plastic, high interest credit. That's not going to be a bottomless well, especially as service on that debt combines with inflation in food and energy to squeeze people even tighter.

The Great Depression happened suddenly, with the collapse of the stock market leaving people with margin debt of 96% of what they'd bought their stocks for and no assets. People said the money disappeared overnight. This time, it's more likely to be a slower process, being squeezed to death until there's nothing more to squeeze.

My customers are getting loans.....here and there....

Did THAT happen during the depression?

Not being snarky. I am in sales in Michigan.

My customers are reluctant to take on further debt.

I will be HORRIFIED when they start telling me that the
banks are TURNING THEM DOWN for loans.

What hear you on this front?

unless it's on plastic at an usurious rate. Bank loans for everything from home improvement to new cars are getting harder to get, lots more documentation needed and new hoops to jump through. House sales here and there are falling through when loans are withdrawn at the last minute.

Loans at a reasonable rate are getting tougher to get. Plastic debt at a high rate is still relatively easy to get, but I've noticed the comeons in the mail have dropped from 1-2 per day to 1-2 per week.

Small business.

A recession is defined as negative GDP growth. IIRC a Depression is defined as when the economy stays stagnant after a particularly bad recession instead of rebounding.

...but I do remember stagnation following an economic contraction being part of the definition.

The dollar is in a freefall, oil is going through the roof, retail sales are dropping, and unemployment is rising. Won't be long.

When the man on the street can't pay his bills and the bank is wondering where their mortgage money is, it's going to be fed and feed into those other four things listed.

which no one wants to admit...