Averting the Worst

In this article, Paul Krugman relieves the public by stating the chances of an economic depression are gone. Sure, Krugman does concede that the economy is doing really poorly still, but he still substantiates his claims with evidence. First is that the financial panic in 2008 is nowhere near as severe as the one in the 1930s. This is significant because it proves that although consumer confidence declined it did not decline to the point of a depression. Second, and one of the biggest reasons, is that the government played a much bigger role in helping the economy now than they did back then. Policies such as the toxic assets, stimulus, and bail outs are all examples of government involvement that was not there during the Great Depression until the presidency of FDR.
Krugman writes with very convincing evidence and distinctions, but I believe there are other contributing factors that made the impacts of this recession much less devastating than the Great Depression. First, is that economics have became an international business. International trade and economic relations allow countries to help each other out. Second, is that this recession deals only with economic, while the depression of the 30s dealt with far more problems. The distinction between a recession and depression is that depression is defined by the lack of production and more towards the material wealth of a nation. Back in 1930s the dust bowl and many factory close downs resulted in depression. None of that is happening now.