What will we call the current economic crisis? The term "current economic crisis" is used quite frequently but that will only fly for a few more months.
It has been called the "housing crisis", the "mortgage crisis", the "Wall Street crisis", the "banking crisis" among other terms.
It is much, much more broad in terms of the effects on our country to relate it to just one sector like housing.
No, perhaps we need an all encompassing term that will sum up what caused the whole mess and how deeply it has changed our nation.
We need a term that will last through the decades like the "Great Depression" to explain to subsequent generations why they are still in debt a hundred years later.
A few terms come to mind that seem descriptive of just how we got into this mess and how the government is screwing it up even further. "The Great Boondoggle", or "The Credit Disaster", or "The Early 21'st Century Economic Meltdown" might fit.
The name needs to have weight and convey a sense of complete chaos, the loss of trillions of dollars of assets, jobs and homes, not to mention trust in our financial institutions and regulatory agencies.
I personally favor the term "The Great Collapse and Reawakening".
In combining two these two terms we can explain in one simple phrase to future generations exactly what happened and why.
Reawakening works because Americans were in some kind of credit sleepwalk for the past several decades. Our own government, thanks to Alan Greenspan and even George Bush, told us that after 9-11 we needed to "go shopping" to help our country. To get us to do so they lowered interest rates so low we couldn't resist. After all, it was patriotic to keep shopping.
While other countries around the world urged their citizens to put money into savings we became more in debt.
It seemed as if it were our God given right to have a new car, or two of them, a jet ski, flat screen or a 4000 square foot house with marble countertops. Every home improvement and reality TV show reinforced that this was the way to live, even if you had to borrow on credit to do so. And, you just might get rich easy by buying and "flipping" a home you couldn't afford.
Suddenly the average size of women's engagement diamonds grew to nearly the size of a dime. Why?, because reality wedding shows and a clever marketing campaign by DeBeers told us that the groom should spend at least two month's salary and brides began to expect it!
Used cars became something we made fun of. Even in high school parking lots most kids seemed to be driving new models.
How did all of this excess become to be seen as normal? It is, and was a sickness with which Americans became infected thanks to advertising by large corporations and by our government which is in turn controlled by those corporations.
Now, from the cradle we are programmed like zombies or robots with what to watch, eat, drink and how to live.
A baby's first words are just as likely to be "McDonalds" as they are to be "Mommy".
There is a chance that a real awakening is going on and Americans are learning just how they are being brainwashed to "buy, buy, buy".
If that is the case calling the current financial crisis an awakening might just be the most appropriate term.Wall Street Crash, 1929