Depression v. Recession

Many people these days say we are in the Second Depression. I say we are so far from it just by looking at the numbers. Sure there are a lot of unemployed people at this time but it is nothing like in the 1930's. Right now (2008) we are at an unemployment rate of 8% as where in 1929-1933 we hit bottom at 255, and that is on average. Stocks have obviously gone way down but it isn't another crash. The biggest decline of the Dow Jones Industrial during this recession was 53.8% (Oct. 9, 2007- March 9, 2009) as where the biggest decline during the Depression was 89.2% (Sept. 3, 1929 – July 8, 1932). Bank failures right now are sitting at about 0.6%, around 50, and during the Great Depression it was 50% or roughly 9,000 banks. The economic decline now is 3.3% and then was 26.3%, an astonishing 23% difference. The change in prices then was down 25% as where now it is up 0.5% still in the black. The Largest difference, though, is the difference in the increase of money supply by the Federal Reserve. In 1933 the increase reached 17% as where in the span of September 2008 – May 2009 it skyrocketed to 125%.