The Art and Names of The Global Financial Crisis...

Yesterday it officially became a Recession with experts saying it will be a deeper and longer recession than any we've seen in three decades and it is now being called a Global Crisis.  Looking at the art of it all of these things we are now naming, Time magazine's cover for October 13 takes us back to images of The Great Depression.  What is interesting is that this Time cover art with the cover story headline The New Hard Times is on all four global regional issues for the week.  Usually these covers are tailored for each market.  Another digital visual of the moment: the U.S. National Debt Clock ran out of digits to record the spiraling failure as it passed $10 trillion.

Time also had a good visual illustration of the global meltdown, and the cultural art as we go through this is part of the studies for the U.S. Economic Crisis Media Study I'm working on.  Today the G7 meets and takes on the crisis.

The $700 billion Bailout is now called Troubled Asset Relief Program while in the UK it is called a Bailout Plan as our crisis spreads globally.  For us, we're thinking about the visual reference to the Soup Lines of the 1930s which makes us think: The Great Depression, redux.

Mother this week reminded me of the saying: Eat it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

Related:

The Syntax of Sarah and EconomicSpeak

U.S. Economic Crisis Media Study

Bigge$st Cri$i$ and Mediaand Panic, Collapse and Meltdown

Comments

[Rhea]

I think 'recession' will become 'depression' in a short time. There are just too many calamities coming down the line.

[anthony]

From 1929-1932, over 5,000 banks failed, we are at 12. Homebuilding the same period dropped 80%, we are a fraction of that. In 1929 our crop prices dropped 80%, we have had growth through the last quarter. Our corporate profits (even at these reduced numbers) are 30% higher than we were in 2002. Our unemployment is now 6%, in the depression it was 30%. My point is, that we are nowhere near what we were in 1929-1932 (The Depression). In fact, we haven't even fallen into the "recession" category until now. In 1929 we were in a recession, and the Government and it's insistence on regulation, actually chose to contract liquidity and offered no support to the banking system. Economists from Friedman back then, to Bernanke now, all agree that our over-regulation and policy of contraction was what made a recession into a depression. We have not made that same mistake this time. The one thing we had this time, that we didn't have before, is that the individual consumers back then didn't all have 12 credit cards, homes twice the size they should have, and a propensity to spend 125% of what they made a year back then. We live in a country of mostly free choices. You can eat what you want (even if it's bad for you), you can drink what you want, and you can borrow what you want.You can even choose to do any of these to excess. Just because it is available, doesn't mean you have to take it! The day people start making wiser choices for their personal consumption, is when we will be in control once again. The markets will bottom out, and we will turn around soon. Hopefully the next time, consumers exhibit some control and personal responsibility. Many places may offer you credit, you remain in control of your destiny , when you take responsibility for your own life.

[tut-tut]

Hmmm. Deregulation has caused more harm than good, to any number of entities. Is what I think.