A fun joke

Here is how the joke goes:

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.

I don't see why it is fun. Can you help?

LCChang

Clive wrote:

Hi, Here is how the joke goes: It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own. I don't see why it is funny. Can you help? It's playing with the fact that the word 'depression' can have two meanings here. 1. An economic meaning. (a period when the economy slumps). 2. A personal meaning (a person's emotions slump, they feel hopeless and sad). Part of the humour is also that I take my job loss more personally than I take my neighbour's job loss. Do people in your culture make jokes about serious topics, like losing your job or even death? In my culture, we do. It is often called 'black humour', and it is hard to understand if it is not part of your native culture. Best wishes. Clive

Thanks, Clive. I think that a depression is more serious than a recession, and that is the main idea the joke brings up. By the way, I got to tell you  I am a person with sense of humor too....seriously...uh...nope...I mean it. 

LCChang

It's not very funny.

A recesssion is a slow down of the economy. A depression is when the economy stays bad.

So when a bad thing happens to someone else, it's bad, but not terrible. When a bad thing happens to you, it's terrible.