by Calculated Risk on 6/27/2010 11:59:00 PM

From Paul Krugman in the NY Times: The Third Depression

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.
...
We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

From CR: I'm not as pessimistic as Professor Krugman, but I do think with almost double digit unemployment, the focus of policymakers should be jobs, jobs, jobs ...