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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (54408)	1/16/2007 10:27:42 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

People directly affected by the depression, know what happened to them and those close to them. They would have an idea about when the depression ended. But their estimates would typically be that the depression ended when they (or their relatives or friends) got a job. Generally a recovery starts before strong job growth, so they would be a little late in their estimates, but probably not wildly off. Having a decent idea about when the depression ended doesn't mean they have a good idea about why it ended. WWII was big, there feelings of the end of the depression happened about the same time. Its natural to link the two, but that doesn't mean they really are linked. Industrial production in 1940 in the US was close to 40% more than it was in 1938. Unemployment was down too, even if it was still close to 14%. The end of a depression doesn't equal "times are now good". When the economy starts pulling ahead its pulling from a low point, so when the depression (recession, panic, pull-back etc.) ends people still think things are doing poorly (in the case of a severe economic turn-down like the depression, replace "poorly" with a stronger word). You probably have heard the old saw that if you lined up all the economists in the world head to foot, they wouldn't reach a conclusion. Economics is far from a hard science, but it isn't useless either. In any case my conclusion differs from that of a number of economists. I'm not just saying "an economist said this so its must be true. Your right that during the war years anyone who wanted to work could work. But you could have had the same effect by pay having the government pay people to dig holes and pay other people to fill them back in. People would have jobs, but it would hardly be a real economic recovery.