If you know your U.S. history, you know that the United States was in a "Great Depression" throughout the 1930s, getting out only sometime during World War II.
So the "official" recession last less than four years, though the Great Depression lasts up to a decade and a half.
Part of the reason is that there were two separate "recessions" during the Great Depression, if we can say something that sounds nonsensical.
Also, despite the moniker "roaring twenties," and the undeniable growth of that period, there were recessions in 1920, 1923, 1926 and 1929. Every three years, a reversal from growth to decline.
Given current worry about a double dip recession, and recent comments by the Federal Reserve suggesting it is worried about that happening, despite other "happy talk" about the low possibility of such an event, the 1920s and even 1950s record suggests one can say it is possible, perhaps even likely, there could be a growth reversal every three years, even in an otherwise robust economic climate.
If the last recession "ended" in June 2009, that might suggest another recession starting in June 2012 or so. Maybe its not strictly a "double dip," but two separate recessions. Americans won't care.
Nor does it provide any comfort to note there were "just" two recessions in the era we call the Great Depression. In other words, the formal definitions are one thing; the human experience quite another thing.
