The Washington Post economics column today says the covid crisis is a "depression."
What's the difference between a recession and a depression? First, a depression is worse. But more importantly, it's a depression when we don't know what to do. We now know--at least we think so--what the government should have done about the Great Depression in the 1930's. That's why that kind of depression hasn't been repeated.
But we don't know what we should do now.
Some countries stopped the virus in its tracks and then successfully reopened their economies: Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand, S Korea.
We have the virus getting worse while we are sorta trying to reopen and it doesn't seem to be working. That makes it a depression, according to Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post, today.
