Depression/Recession definitions aren't fixed to benchmarks. Many would call a depression a period where GDP falls by 10% or more; by that definition, we aren't there (yet). Another definition is that a depression is a period of "recession that lasts longer and has a larger decline in business activity." The average recession lasts about a year, this decline (at least in the stock market) has been going for about 1.5 years.

My retirement plan is down by just over 60% since 10/31/07 -- oddly enough, the government claims that GDP actually increased during much of that time, so if we were actually in a period of continued economic growth, why were all my personal benchmarks down by so much? The Fed denied we were even in a recession until late 2008 -- I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I believe creative accounting isn't limited to companies -- politicians don't have to accept blame for the economy as long as the numbers can be manipulated to say it's fine. If they can just hang a big enough "Mission Accomplished" sign, maybe we'll believe that this little problem is all over.

I'm not saying that I'd prefer to live in a different country, but I am saying that there appears to be a profound lack of accountability in both the public and private sector, as well as an ongoing attempt to hide the scope of the problem.