Is the difference between a Depression and a Recession just the scenery?

The last decade has been the second slowest growth decade in American history, barely outpacing the decade around the Great Depression.  Indeed that decade and ours stand out as far worse than any other in the last 210 years.  But it doesn't feel like it did back in the 30's:  instead of soup lines we have a trebling of Food Stamps, instead of men peddling apples, we have people on their 100th week of unemployment insurance and tripled disability claims.  Yet the underlying real unemployment rate remains over 11% and while the misery might not be as visible it is real.  For example, suicide rates are up 50% as more and more people fall into despair.

And the sad thing is that with our massive and ever expanding debt and unfunded liability levels, with the brutal regulatory state expanding its tentacles deeper and deeper into every nook and cranny of the economy and with the nation now totally acclimatized to welfarism and rent seeking, there is very little prospect of things changing absent catastrophe.

Last time it took WW2 to pull us out of the statist cul de sac we had turned into.  What fresh hell will be required this time?

We have change with no hope.