We blow ever-larger bubbles with loose monetary policy and gut the real productive economy, what could anyone expect to happen? Tech bubble, housing bubble, now government debt bubble - each has more and more severe consequences when it pops. And they all pop.
I am in agreement....in fact, we will need a new word for this because it doesn’t really fit recession or depression. I also think the massive amount of commerce regulation and over 70k pages of tax code have now reached a avalanche effect. Pick up a copy of The Forgotten Man and read through a 5-star history on the 1920s/1930s...you eventually realize that personalities of leadership really did matter, and were the keys to the start, the continuation, and length of the depression.
And we’re on the final leg of the baby boom, we’ve got a debt bubble, and we’ve still not cleaned up the mess left behind by the housing bubble.
These are issues that’ll take another decade to wind down. In the mean time, we could have a zombie economy for the next decade...assuming Europe doesn’t suck us under.