And I would like to ask a personal question

[bhikkhu]

14. Well, looking at definitions and statistics -

Depression: "A particularly long and/or deep recession. While there is no technical definition of a depression, conventionally it is defined as a period featuring severe declines in productivity and investment and particularly high unemployment. During the Great Depression, for example, GDP in the United States dropped 12% between 1929 and 1930 and a further 16% the following year. Likewise, unemployment rose to more than 25% nationwide and higher in some places.

From http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Depression

The US was in a recession (negative GDP growth) throughout 2008, and about halfway into 2009. Since then we have had economic growth averaging about 2%. Which isn't too bad. Global economic growth in the same period has averaged about 1.5%.

As far as cause and effect, one of the one's most overlooked here is resource and energy constraints, involved in the price spikes in 2008. The problems have been a bit under the radar, as they don't quite suit the ideologies that are usually applied to economic conditions, but they have become endemic. Every indication is that growth is now constrained under a new paradigm of resource and energy limits, regardless of whatever else is done. Finite planet=limits to growth.