Business Cycles, Depressions and Recessions

Ever since money has been in circulation and the economy has been in full swing, it has been almost impossible for economists to predicts the business cycles of the economy. This is for many reasons, one being the unexpected ups and downs of an economy. These ups and downs usually occur because of bear and bull markets. A bull market is when the economy appears to be growing steadily and is expected to stay that way. During a bull market stock prices rise, currency rates rise, unemployment is low and in result the economy grows because people are more willing to spend money. It is referred to as a "bull" market due to

the way a bull attacks, thrusting its horns in the air, metaphorically referring to how the economy is thrusting upwards as well. A bear market is the opposite; when the economic growth slows and the unemployment rate is high, causing people to be more conscious of how they spend money, which in return hurts the economy. Through out history bull and bear markets have ended in all different sorts of ways. In the late 1920's what started out as a bear market turned into the Great Depression. As the bear market at the time only worsened over time it became obvious that there is no definite way to reverse a declining economy. Going back to how economists cannot predict business cycles, because of the forever changing demand and supply and an unpredictable society, today's economy will never be fully predictable. For this reason recessions, which typically only last two or three quarter business cycles, are hard to stop from becoming depressions because no matter how hard economists try attempting to reverse a recession, trying will only make it worse. Although sometimes trying to fix these recessions may seem like a good idea, the economy may just slip farther into a recession and finally become a depression where not only stocks go down, unemployment rises and money value lessens but also the citizens living status decreases. There lives are less enjoyable, a recession was "when your neighbor loses their job and a depression was when you lost yours."(6 How the Economy Works in the Real World)