Recession Makes for Depression!

It's not been a good couple of months worth of news has it? Recessions and natural disasters as well as a fair few human instigated messes!
My anti-social side is definitely starting to kick in and I'm finding myself rushing past people and declaring fictitious meetings as I haven't had one conversation recently that didn't involve some depressed person - and no I don't just talk to myself! All these negative vibes are starting to rub off. I keep finding myself getting grumpy, I'm becoming a moaner, next things you know I'll be running around wearing placards predicting the 'end is nigh'. Our eldest was a stress head of a young child, I used to call him Chicken Licken and shout, 'the sky is falling' whenever he started...oh the days that Maurice Chevalier's 'Enjoy It' bellowed on repeat while we convinced him to look on the bright side rather than to always focus on the bad. Think I could do with some of that therapy myself now!
So what is causing this mass depression? It can't just be the recession...I've been skint for years and it's never really bothered me or got in the way of seeing the funny side of things. Maybe it's got a little, or a lot, to do with the 'keeping-up-with-the-Joneses' syndrome, people not wanting to feel left out in the miserability stakes. So it seems popping chill pills is the new must have; I remember when it was just a new conservatory or having venetian blinds fitted, items that were debt inducing and involved conversations with strange men who called you 'love' and therefore were not crazes I would ever subject myself too. Maybe if doctors wore dodgy suits, smelled strongly of cheap aftershave and used 'love' as a form of punctuation, people would be less inclined to want to go and request pick-me-ups? Or maybe we've just reached that point high-lighted on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, where we have started to have aspirations and expectations regarding a 'need' for happiness, without really knowing how or what can create this euphoric feeling. Now shopping has been curbed by the great financial squeeze, people are left confused and perplexed as to what will create this externally induced state. And the result? They become Chicken Licken's with the sky falling in over every lost button or stubbed toe...maybe all I really need is the money to buy a wonderful isolated cottage, ummmm, now wouldn't that make me happy?!