Great Recession v Great Depression: Diff. or Same?

Currently, most of the industrialized world is in a Great Recession which has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-1941.     It is a crisis that hasn't gotten any better-- just simply papered over literally, especially in the US with the printing of multi-trillions of dollars in the effort to help banks, Wall Street and the housing industry stay afloat when all industries are still severely crippled.

But it got me thinking-  the reason we're not in Depression part deux isn't because the Fed "took fast action" to save the financials or because of the $$ that was spent to stabilize the credit markets, yadda yadda...   It is because of two factors- the social safety nets established during the 30's Depression and disturbingly, because we are a nation in constant war.

For a good part of the Great Depression, you had massive breadlines- people standing out in the open in long lines, sometimes for hours- in heat, cold rain.. just for some food because they were virtually penniless and hungry.  Eventually in 1939 the food stamp program was born to help ensure the poorest Americans were not deprived of the ability to eat.

Today, 44 million Americans are on food stamps.   Seeing how terrible and selfishly government is run today, there's no evidence I find that had food stamps not existed in 2008, that it would be created today, and we would still have long breadlines out in the open.  Food stamps, along with other forms of government assistance, allow the individual suffering to be more private.

Prior to the Great Depression there was also no welfare or unemployment or social security or pensions.  When you lost your money, that was it- you were broke and no one was going to save you.  So you would be homeless, destitute and just be 'waking dead' with no realistic hope of ever turning your life around.      This is how fiscal conservatives today without any genuine compassion would prefer it-- "You sink, you swim-  you drown, your fault."

Today when you combine food stamps, unemployment and/or some kind of other welfare, approximately 55 million people in 2011 receive some form of non-social security or pension assistance from the government that otherwise would cause a complete collapse of their financial lives.  About another 6 million receive social security, soc. sec. disability or SSI, pushing the total figure to about 61 million Americans dependent in some fashion on government assistance--  1 in 5.

Then let's not forget all the US wars-- currently four if you count secret airstrikes recently in Yemen.  They're quite expensive undoubtedly and certainly $1million can be spent on a better thing than a missile, but you need to understand the other dynamic at play.   What officially ended the Great Depression was entrance into World War II and its mobilization of men into the military and women (and some men) into the munitions factories.

This was a big deal and can't be minimized.   The US was not in any large military conflicts between 1929 and '41 so there was no opportunity to quickly hire masses of people in one broad stroke.  It took FDR directly challenging corporations who refused to hire, by developing creative and productive venues to create mass employment for there to be some sincere positive movement in unemployment back in the mid 1930's.

Currently 'official' unemployment is at 9.1%   If not for purposely fuzzy math where the Dept. of Labor doesn't count underemployed, those too discouraged to find work, etc., the true rate would be around 16%.  The 'official' number has not decreased under 8.5% in 33 months and counting.

There are about 2.5 million men and women who serve in the US Armed Forces in some capacity.   If not for the wars we fight, it would be fair to say the total of people receiving paychecks from Uncle Sam would slash by at minimum 33%.  In other words, about an additional million people would be out of work currently if the US was in peacetime. This doesn't even count layoffs from the military industrial complex if the Pentagon stopped buying tanks, planes, weapon systems, etc in masse.

So you see, what made the Great Depression what it was back in the day, was lack of social safety nets which weren't created until the mid to late 1930s and lack of wars to fight which kept people employed.

So really one could reasonably make the argument we're currently in the early stages of another Great Depression- not a recession and Dear-God certainly not a 'recovery.  But don't ever expect to hear that from politicians or corporate media.  The Hopium-heads are too focused on hard-pushing fantasies of 'headwinds', 'soft patches', 'minor dips' and 'blips'