photo: AMagill/ BY

Once this recession is over we're gonna get right back to normal, right? It'll be My Super Sweet 16, Cristal, and Escalades all over the place. A do-over of the "Roaring Noughties" we were promised instead of the lame Aughts they turned out to be.

Right?

Not so fast. It looks like recessions make a lasting impression on those who come of financial age when they hit. New York Times writer Alina Tugend took a look at the work of UCLA economics researcher Paola Giuliano for a piece on "Recession Resolutions":

Examining information from 50,000 individuals, Professor Giuliano found that those who were 18 to 25 years old when the recession occurred — no matter what part of the country they lived in — were more likely to believe certain tenets than those who didn’t live through a severe recession, or those younger or older. They are more likely to believe that luck, as opposed to hard work, is the key to individual success, and that more government intervention is necessary to provide safety nets, even if that means higher taxes. Yet they also have less confidence in government.

Prof. Giuliano's research partner pointed out to Tugend that the deep kind of changes brought about in behavior by the Great Depression came about over 15 years, not the one or two year long recessions the U.S. has experienced since then.