I suggest we assign economic recessions male and female names like we do with hurricanes. It would make each recession more specific and memorable (a la "Hurricane Andrew", rather than "The big hurricane around 1992")
A recession is like a hurricane in many ways: It travels a deadly path from one financial sector to another, destroying all profits in its path and affecting the health and wealth of everyone remotely near to it financially. It leaves financial ruin and financial injury (poverty; layoffs) in its wake which take many years to recover from.
Making past recessions more memorable would encourage people to invest more prudently. Associating a name with the crash will spark people's minds as to how bad things really can and do happen. A lot of people would never choose to live in a place plagued by hurricanes, and yet those same people happily invest their money in a stock market that experiences recessions every 5 to 10 years.
Recessions could even be named after whoever's Secretary of the Treasury at the time - this would impose a strong incentive for the Secretary to try to prevent them, as no one wants his/her name attached to a bad historical event; yet it would not be a real financial stake.-- phundug, Oct 09 2008 Also there is this http://www.whitehou...09/20080919-15.htmlA press release by the administration [Cuit_au_Four, Oct 10 2008] There's a lot of money to be made in a falling market. Warren Buffett is cleaning up right now, with many stock prices irrationally low.
I vote we call this one Recession George, before it degenerates into a topical pain depression.-- UnaBubba, Oct 09 2008 There was also a recession during the previous Bush administration. This one should be called George Jr. [+]-- jaksplat, Oct 09 2008 Touché, [jaksplat].-- wagster, Oct 09 2008 //Warren Buffett is cleaning up//
Capitalism only works if you have capital.
Wasn't the depression of the 1930s named after Alexander the Great?-- baconbrain, Oct 09 2008 No I suspect that Reagan-bombics would be a superior description.-- WcW, Oct 09 2008 Many of these clowns will retire wealthy beyond their years as a result of their actions, and couldn't care less what we hang on their names.-- normzone, Oct 09 2008 + Still a great idea. It would be nice to add something nasty after the name besides the word *recession*. (what was so *great* about the Great Depression?)-- xandram, Oct 10 2008 The only reason people are clearing up on the stock market is because there are people panicing. In the same way as a run on a bank causes it to run out of money (or at least speeds up the process) people see the stock market fall and think they need to sell. They sell and this allows brockers to buy low.
If we name a crash we would only be able to do it afterwards. Naming it as it happens is going to make people fear the worst. Especially if you called it the Dubya crash.-- miasere, Oct 10 2008 We started to prefer the word recession as a blanket term since depression sounded too negative, evoking images of the 1930s.
Now recession itself sounds too harsh and the vogue phrase seems to be 'on the cusp of recession' or similar.
Give it another 5 decades and we'll be saying "possibly about to deviate from splendidness" or something equally ridiculous.
Anyway, recessions tend to be linked with the collapse of a major firm or bank, so maybe we could name them after the first one to hit the wall?-- boysparks, Oct 10 2008 I think there is a specific definition of "recession" - e.g. produce drops by 20% or something, and it becomes a depression if this goes on for a specific number of years. So we could name them as they happen.-- phundug, Oct 10 2008 //"possibly about to deviate from splendidness" // Oh no, sell! Sell! SELLLLLLLLLLLL!-- phundug, Oct 10 2008 + for // "possibly about to deviate from splendidness" //-- rcarty, Oct 10 2008 I don't think it should be named after a person, but perhaps the cause.
This should become known as the "Facebook Recession".-- Ian Tindale, Oct 10 2008 //possibly about to deviate from splendidness//
Double plus ungood?
's funny, how repressing words correlates to control. One day I'm setting up shop in an unpopulatated area of Canada and shooting anyone that steps foot on my property.-- MikeD, Oct 10 2008 That's 13 syllables; I don't see it becoming a jargon phrase anytime soon.-- FlyingToaster, Oct 10 2008 This is like calling World War II the Hitler War.
However, I would call it the Congressional Recession, or the "Concession," because if you don't blame Congress for its inaction, that's what you are granting them.-- Cuit_au_Four, Oct 10 2008 I was going to propose naming it "Thatcher" a few days ago, but held off as I feared devastating neocon economic flaming. But last night the TV agreed with me, so I'm feeling braver.
It's Thatcher's fault - name it after her.-- Loris, Oct 13 2008 Not only Thatcher's; more Reagan's.-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Oct 13 2008 Europe just put another trillion dollars into the system.
Name bail-outs after people. In this case, the great Socialist Sarkozy gets the credit of saving global capitalism's ass.
In any case [+].-- django, Oct 13 2008 nope, Bush does not have the power to concieve and pass a budget without congressional approval.-- Voice, Oct 14 2008 Nah -- Thatcher Reagan recession sounds great.-- rcarty, Oct 16 2008 Thatcher Reagan recession - what about the general recessions of the early 80's, 90's and 2000's - who do they get named after, and how/why is there a 20+ year gap between a person being in charge, and having a recession named after them? - is it because there are *so* many people to blame that you just have to wait your turn?-- zen_tom, Oct 16 2008 We had the Keating recession in the mid-80s. He was our treasurer at the time and described it as "The recession we had to have." Autocratic bastard.
The official definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Not that hard to do, in this economic situation.-- UnaBubba, Oct 16 2008 This is "Recession Alan Grenspan". The last Great Depression was "Recession Herbert Hoover".-- quantum_flux, Oct 17 2008 halfbakery