In March, when I suggested ways to determine if the “economic narrative” has shifted from recession to recovery, one of my markers to look for was this: “Stories that challenge the premise that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression.”

If you want to read what I now consider to be the definitive essay in the emerging “you-can’t-imagine-how-much-this-is-not-the-Great-Depression” category, check out this post on the NYTimes.com’s Freakonomics Blog. It’s part one of a three-part post titled, “The is not another Great Depression,” by the economics historian Price V. Fishback.

Quote:

“In 1930, Americans produced 8.6 percent fewer final goods and services than in 1929, in 1931 15 percent less, and in 1932 and 1933 roughly 26 percent less than in 1929. It is hard to conceptualize such a drop in G.D.P. Consider this: the 1932 and 1933 figures would have been the equivalent of shutting down all production of goods and services west of the Mississippi River. Annual real G.D.P. did not reach its 1929 level again until 1936. We are experiencing pain now, but the problems of the Great Depression were several magnitudes greater.”

A highly-recommended read.

Serge Jespers, “Adobe platform evangelist” (and you thought you had difficulty explaining to your parents what you do — imagine if you had a job evangelizing “air“), announced today that there is now a New York Times Reader version that runs on the Adobe Air platform. You can download it here. (If you don’t know what Adobe Air is, you should probably do a little research before downloading it.)

While this version of the Times is read on a computer, I’m guessing the new Kindle DX version of the New York Times will have a similar, although black and white, format. While the format is being called “print like,” it is not actually a replication of the print version — for one thing, it has a horizontal rather than vertical format. However, the articles are displayed in columns with some of the conventions of print design.

Like I’ve said for about 15 years, I don’t actually understand why I want an online replication of a daily newspaper — I like my news flowing more often than once every 24 hours*, however, if there’s an audience who wants news delivered via smoke signals, I’ll be glad to offer services related to smoke signal optimization. Heck, that would be easier than explaining something is being delivered on the “air” platform.

But, still. Let’s stop with calling these things newspapers. Anything that will break if you spill a cup of coffee on it is not a newspaper.

*While the Times Reader version replicates the day’s paper, it does allow for periodic updates of the front page with breaking news featured in header boxes (see screen grab for 3 p.m. “version”).

Last week, I was talking with someone who runs a company with a service primarily sold through an out-bound phone sales effort targeting decision makers at small and medium size wholesale businesses. He told me he thought the economy turned-around on March 10. “Why such a precise date?” I asked. “Because that’s when our salespeople started being told, “yes,” instead of, “no.”

I’m sure I could ask someone who runs a business in another field and get another opinion, but such are the anecdotes that lead one to believe an economy the size and complexity of the U.S.’s can shift from apocalypse to growth with precision.

This morning, a Reuters story reports that a “survey of top forecasters” (Do economists do something other than respond to surveys?) reveals that economic growth will resume in the third quarter of this year, which, according to the calendar on my iPhone, starts in about three weeks. According to the economists, “The economic downturn is expected to ease in the second quarter of this year.” (The economists didn’t give a precise date for when the easing began, but I’m guessing it was March 10.)

If “blue ribbon panels” of economists and the person I know who declared March 10th as the end of the recession are correct, you can expect me to declare sometime in the future that I am correct in suggesting that the only economist ever worth listening to is Chauncey Gardiner.