What will this month be called?

[jducoeur]

A light question about a serious topic: when the historians write about the roller-coaster ride we're in the middle of, what will they call it?

I mean, every important historical event gets a catchy name, from "Watergate" to "9/11" to "Black Monday". It's clear to me that this September is one that they'll be talking about for decades to come, which means that they *will* settle on a common name for it eventually. How long it takes for such a name to arise ranges from days to years, but there's no time like the present.

So here's your chance to influence the history books. What would *you* call this mess?

Fine print: Winner will be selected by consensus of historians in 20 years. It is not guaranteed that any entrant will win. Chances of winning are directly proportional to relevance and pithiness of name, but it is entirely possible that these will not matter. Bad puns do not guarantee victory. Keep your hands inside the ride at all times.

Comments

[mindways]

Yeah - I'm guessing "collapse" will be part of it.

The Capital Collapse? The Investment-Bank Collapse?

[meiczyslaw.livejournal.com]

If anything, I think yours is most likely. As much noise as is being made about this, there are indications that it's less bad than the Recession of 1980-81, and no one's got a catchy name for that one.

To give you some perspective (quoted from Larry Elder (http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080925/cm_uc_crlelx/op_247514;_ylt=Ah9oroNMuK0MmjICKd.OCqD9wxIF)):

At the Great Depression's nadir, 25 percent of adults were unemployed, including nearly 50 percent of urban black adults. Economist David Wheelock, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, says that by the dawn of 1934, nearly half the urban homes with mortgages were in default, and 7.3 percent of housing structures had been foreclosed. Today 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent, 2.75 percent are in the foreclosure process, and 0.6 percent of all housing units are bank-owned.

But what about since the Great Depression? Take the recession of 1980-81. In 1980, inflation averaged 13.58 percent, unemployment increased from 6.3 to 8.5 percent, and the prime loan rate reached an astonishing 21.5 percent. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, today's delinquency rate is only a little higher than in 1985. And in 1999, the foreclosure rate set records.

According to the FDIC, in the almost two-year period of 2007 and 2008, 15 banks failed. Similarly, during Clinton's last two years in office, 1999 and 2000, 15 banks also failed. In the recession-free years of 1988 and 1989, there were 1,004 bank failures. And since the Great Depression, the average number of yearly bank failures has been 94.

Now, Elder might be cherry-picking his numbers, but that he can cherry-pick indicates that this mess is not as bad as Wall Street wants us to believe.

I'm beginning to think the bail-out might be a boondoggle.