Basic Economics for Economic Columnists: A Depression is a Process, not an Event

With the economy going into a shutdown mode for at least month, and possibly quite a bit longer, were again hearing the cries from elite economics columnists about a Second Great Depression. These are pernicious, not only because they are wrongheaded, but they can be used to justify bad things, like giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the bankers who wrecked the economy with their recklessness during the housing bubble.

The basic and simple error made by the Second Great Depression gang...