John Moser

You know, it all depends on how you define an end to an economic crisis.

If it's the point where GDP returns to where it was before, well, that was 36.

If you define it, like people say, what's a recession?

It's what, two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

Well, the economy stopped contracting in 1933.

So you could say, well, maybe the depression was over.

So there's no universally agreed to definition of when the depression ended because we don't even know what the standard would be for determining that.

We do know that between 1939 and 1941, there was rapid economic growth.

Unemployment was falling.

We know that unemployment went to zero during World War II.

But here's what's critical.

World War II, there's huge amounts of government money being pumped into the economy to produce all the stuff that's necessary for the war effort.

The predictions that were being made in 1944 were, at some point, this war is going to end.

And if we don't find other ways of pumping money into the economy for stuff other than tanks and bombers and other things you need for war...

We're going to see a return to the depression.

Guess what?

There was no return to the depression.

There was a very small uptick in unemployment when the troops came home.

There was a little dip in terms of GDP, but then the economy just took off and kept growing in the post-war period.

So I would say with confidence, it's after World War II that the depression is over.