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What
Shall We Call the Present Economic Crisis: A Contest
by
Walter Block
by Walter Block
Recently by Walter Block: How
I Offended the Diversitarians
Nomenclature
first. Unless and until we know how to refer to the economic debacle
of 2009, we cannot make much progress in solving it. We all know
what to call the previous episode: The Great Depression. But, what
about this present one?
If we do not
get on record with a name, our friends on the left will steal a
march on us. They will call it by some or all of these appellations:
The Great Struggle.
The Capitalist Collapse. The Greed Depression. The Capitalist Depression.
The Libertarian Depression. The Laissez Faire Depression.
So, we have
to head them off. I would like to have a consensus on this matter,
though. Therefore, we are going to have a bit of a contest. Readers
of LewRockwell.com are asked to send in their votes. Everyone can
get up to three votes: 3 points for your first choice, 2 points
for your second choice, and 1 point for your third choice. Since
I am expecting 100s of responses, please put your vote in the following
format, for ease of compilation:
1. (3 points)
Depression to End all Depressions.
2. (2 points)
Fiat Money Depression.
3. (1 point)
Great Depression II.
(These are
just for example, to illustrate the format; do not be biased by
these choices.)
After a week
or so, I will compile the results, and announce the top 10 winners.
Maybe we can sneak this onto the David Letterman show. Here are
the options:
- A Depression
You Can Believe In
- Attention
Deficit Depression (for our lack of attention to history and its
lessons)
- Austrian
School-Predicted Depression
- Banking-Depression.
- Banking-Insurance-Depression
(BI-Depression).
- Beginning
of End of the Dollar Depression
- Bernanke's
Tar Baby Depression
- Big Banana
(the Carter administration presided over an economic downturn
but did not want to call it a recession, so they referred to it
as a "Banana")
- Big Government
Depression
- Fed's depression
- Bum Deal
Depression
- Bush-Obama
Depression.
- Bush-Obama-Depression
(BO-Depression).
- Central
Bank Depression
- "Change"
Depression.
- Crap Capital
Panic
-
Dead Banks
Recession
- Debt Depression
- Debt-pression
- Democratic
Party-Depression (DP Depression)
- Depression
to End all Depressions
- DNC-Depression.
Barney Frank-Depression.
- Echo Depression
- Economic
Debacle of 2009
- Great Repo
Session
- Economists
Gone Wild Depression (All-Economists-Apart-From-Austro-libertarians-Gone-Wild
Depression.)
- Empire's
Depression (we are a bankrupt empire.)
- Fannie and
Freddy Muck
- Fed’s Second
Depression
- Federal
Reserve-Depression (FR-Depression which sounds close to FDR-Depression!).
- Fiat Bank
Depression/Collapse
- Fiat Money
Depression.
- First Meltdown
of the 21st Century Depression
- First Quadrillion
Depression
- Frank-Dodd-Obama-New
Century-Raines-ACORN-Cramer-Kudlow Depression
- FeD-ON-CRACK
Depression
- Friedman-Keynes
Depression
- Gigantic
Depression
- Grand Cahuna
Depression.
- Great Cainseyian
Depression (Cain killed Abel; in reference to the present statist
economic system trying to kill off free enterprise once and for
all.)
- Great Debt-pression
(debt-prison)
- Great Deleveraging
Depression
- Great Denouement
Depression
- Great Depression
2.0.
- Great Depression
II.
- Great Depression
on Steroids
- Great Devaluation
- Great Green
Depression
- Great Keynesian
Depression
- Great
Regression Depression
- Great Repression
- Great Stagflation.
- Great Stagflationary
Depression
- Great Terminal
Depression
- Great Western
Depression
- Greater
Depression
- Greenspan-Bernanke
Depression.
- Indebt Depression.
- Indebted
Depression.
- Intervention
Depression.
- It's not
a depression we're in; it's an Oppression...with emphasis
on O
- Mainstream
Media Depression (MSM-Depression)
- Mainstream-Economists-On-Crack
Depression
- Manic Depression
 Meltdown
Depression (guess who’s book inspired this one)- Messiah-Depression.
- Mother of
all Depressions
- Mr. Market
Stomps Washington
- No green
shoots depression
- Obama-Depression
(OB-Depression)
- Obamanic
Depression
- Oppression
Depression.
- Regulatory
Depression/Collapse
- Republican
Party Depression (RPD)
- Revolutionary
Depression
- Rich Banker
Full Employment Program Depression
- Ron Paul
was Right Economic Crisis
- Ron Paul
was Right Depression
- Terminal
Depression
- Twenty First
Century Flop
- We Deserve
It (because we elected these clowns)-Depression (WDI-Depression)
- We-Learned-Nothing-From-The-Great-Depression
Depression
- World Depression
II
- "Yes
We Can" Depression
- You-Can-Have-It-Now
Depression
- Zombie Bank
Slump
Among those
who have brainstormed with us, so as to elicit the best name for
the economic situation of 2009 for which we thank them, are the
following (if your name is not on this list, and you have sent me
suggestions, please let me know so that I can publicly thank you;
do mention your suggestion).
- Geir Agustsson
- David Beck
- TC Bell
- Kevin Bogvin
- Bob Broadfoot
- Raymond
Bryan
- Collins,
Charles A
- Jim Davidson
- Joe Depczynski
- Brad Dillman
- Roy Drake
- Kevin Duffy
- Bruce Faling
- Aaron Fedora
- Fox, Dick
P
- Jason Gordon
- Kaj Grüssner
- Jennifer
Lewis
- Ansel Leigh
Lindner
- Caitlin
Long
- Daniel
McCarthy
- Lorenz H.
Menke, Jr.
- Christopher
Quick
- Matthew
Palmer
- Jennifer
Penman
- Dennis Petticrew
- aleksander
pruitt
- Monty Roberts
- Roesler,
Nolan
- Jim Shepherd
- Robin Winterset
June
19, 2009
Dr.
Block [send him mail] is a
professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and a senior
fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of Defending
the Undefendable and Labor
Economics From A Free Market Perspective. His latest book
is The
Privatization of Roads and Highways.
Copyright
© 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
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