2009=1933?

In the day or two we”ll likely get an official announcement that the recession has ended. If it comes along as expected, it will be based on readings showing that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose in the recently ended third quarter.

Economists, a group where unemployment is currently unknown, will hail the report. So, too, will stock analysts whose expectations are invariably exceeded, along with officials in Washington whose own policies have allowed Wall Street to chalk up record bonuses, $140 billion worth, in the current year.

Will the back patting and hosannas of these worthies mean anything to the rest of us? Not much. Indeed, based on a previous analogous set of numbers, the present ones suggesting that a “recovery has indeed begun” will mean squat.

Here are these previous ones. After the crash of 1929, the country’s GDP dropped sharply, but again reached 1929 levels by the end of 1933. Which, according to economists, meant that the 1930s Depression was over. A couple of years later in 1937, investment levels had also exceeded those of 1929, another measure used by economists to measure the health of an economy. Oh, and after 1933, unemployment also began to drop gradually from its 24 percent high in 1933.

Does anyone except an economist really think the Great Depression ended in 1933? If so, let me suggest you rent or get from your local library videos of “Carnivale,” a visually extraordinary HBO series that captures many of the horrors of the post-1933 years to an amazing extent.

Now a suggestion to economists, the Wall Street crowd, and the folks in Beltway land. Don’t make too big a deal when official numbers say the present recession has ended and a recovery has officially begun — not when such claims go so directly against the reality felt by most Americans. It will only make you appear even less deserving of respect than is currently the case.