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Questioning recession

A recession by definition is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. There is as of now no recession of 2008. - anon

Though one may question whether there is a recession or not, the sources say otherwise. This discussion should be held on the article's AfD page. Truthanado (talk) 01:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
"Sources". No, good sir, a singular "SOURCE": The NBER. (Which makes me wonder aloud, what sources could this article have referred to at the beginning of this year???) ALL the references to this cited in this article refer back to just ONE source, the NBER. (The Merrill Lynch economist does add to it.) And just as those below argue over whether "two-negative growth quarters" defines a recession, the NBER's is no more definitive than any other definition. Furthermore, its assessment is not yet in concurrence with any other agency, government or commercial, such as the Treasury or Reserve.
That said, the necessity of this article probably isn't debatable -- the USA will have been in negative GDP growth by end of 2008, and the UK has just yesterday entered a "technical" recession.
Aragond) 21:50, 24 January 2009

Although "two consecutive quarters of economic contraction" is a commonly cited definition for recession, it is neither the only definition nor the one accepted by most economists [1]. I don't say this take sides as to whether or not the US is in a recession, but to correct a common misnomer. Anthony (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

As discussed below, it is not only a recession, it is quite a recession. Time to wrap the general terms of "financial crisis", "panic", "pullback", etc. together under the catchall "Recession of 2008", and describe the various aspects of same.:Hoofin (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Please note that in the same About article, after it finishes debunking "two negative quarters", it says a recession is anything with less than a 10% decline in GDP, an equally-debatable measure.
Aragond) 21:50, 24 January 2009

Rename the article

This article should be renamed to a less speculative topic. The stock market saw its biggest opening year drop ever as I recall and the economic indicators all show a slowdown that much can be agreed. The fact some call it a recession or say it will lead to one is relevant. There's even talk of stagflation, which is a serious matter that hasn't come up in decades. I think this should be renamed to described the general economic crisis in the country. Some states are actually in a recession after all.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This article should be renamed to a more suitable title. Right now it's highly POV because whether it is a recession or not is disputed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
A rename was discussed in the article's AfD discussion and was rejected. We would need some new justification to rename it now. Truthanado (talk) 23:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Just curious. The article was recently renamed from Economic recession of 2008 to Economic crisis of 2008 because the recession has not technically occurred yet. When the recession does happen (i.e.-two successive quarters of negative growth), should the article be renamed back to what it was? Just wondering ... Truthanado (talk) 23:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I would vote for renaming to the Great Recession of 2008. 65.167.146.130 (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is this referred to as Late 2000's recession? Isn't less than a decade into the 2000's classify this as the Early 200's recession

  • I completely agree with the comment above - we are at the very beginning of the 2000s. If there is a recession in the 2990's, that will be the "Late 2000s Recession". Until then, we should rename this appropriately. MattDredd (talk) 03:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

We should leave quibbles over terminology to the politicians who are eager to calm their electors. The name for the crisis is changing with each new explosion; "sub-prime crisis", "liquidity crisis", "financial crisis", "banking crisis" etc.. Each term refers to the collapse of a particular part of the economic system, plus the usual rhetorical gloss. As the problems spread into the real economy and production begins to recede, then the term "recession" may be applied. Despite these nuances, "economic crisis" is a suitable umbrella-term that covers each of the separate elements of the collapse of the global economy. This title should stand. -anon

I think this article should be maintain its name..pending global GDP outputs for the Q1 of FY2009. If they are indeed lower than Q4 of FY2008 then the article should keep its name. Otherwise, it should become something along the lines of "Late 2000s Economic Crisis." Also, if Q4 of FY2009 still shows contraction, I believe the article should be renamed to "Late 2000s Depression"Jewba09 (talk) 22:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)jewba09

This article seems to have been renamed with no consensus to do so. How does one move it back to the original name?Ratemonth (talk) 14:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

GDP computation

a recession can only be seen in hindsight; however i do agree it is too early to start this article, even though i personally believe we've entered recession already, lets wait for the official word from our chiefs

by the time they officially call the recession the US will be halfway into a depression, this downturn is going to hit fast and hard, and its going to progress to worse alot faster than most people imagine

its a perfect storm of economic conditions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.81.102 (talk) 01:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Causes of the recession

We can't just list oil prices and the huge devaluation of the dollar as "causes" of the recession. These topics need to be discussed in detail. Why are oil prices going up? Is it because of volatility in one of the top oil-producing regions in the world partially caused by the Iraq War? Is it because the new supply of oil can't keep up with the new demand? Is it because crude oil is priced in dollars so that when the dollar devalues (partially due to excessive and sustained U.S. government budget deficits, huge increases in the money supply to fund them) the price of oil goes up? On the other hand, you have the price of wheat and corn going up thanks to the heavy investment by the U.S. government into ethanol for fuel. This has given farmers a huge incentive to produce corn leaving a reduction in the supply of wheat, while the price of both ethanol and wheat, and ultimately our taxes, go up.

The subprime mortgage crisis has also contributed heavily to the bursting of this housing bubble which is fundamentally very similar to the stock market collapse of 1929. Many people had put their entire savings into homes with the expectation of appreciation. A combination of extremely low interest rates and poor lending practices inflated the bubble that's very clearly and distinctly burst. So we have to ask ourselves: why were interest rates so low? Why were the lending practices so poor? Was it because of the moral hazard problem involved with the concept of the "lender of last resort" for banks? Was it too much government control of the interest rates? And now we are seeing the Federal Reserve potentially bailing out Bear Stearns making it seem like they are willing to let inflation run away with money supply increases if it means saving the banks that fail.

I think these topics need to be explored further on this page and then we can begin organizing the article. JHMM13(Disc) 04:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's my admittedly cynical take on all this. There's definitely greater demand for oil, and much of this is new demand from Asia. India and China grow prosperous from cheap exports as American CEOs strip-mine our economy under the guise of "free trade". And gas-guzzling SUVs aren't helping. Hybrids and alternate fuel vehicles will take the edge off, but this is going to be years away.
Absolutely, over the past decade I had been labeled a "chicken little" for predicting a meltdown, and a racist for blaming the trade imbalances of global free trade. Credit is only a vehicle for global capital. Canada just experienced a financial downturn because its imports exceeded exports reported in this CBC article: "'When you start running a trade deficit, it's a drag on your economy,' says Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Association." This is certainly a contributing factor, and I believe it is the main factor.--John Bessa (talk) 17:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
The Iraq war should have alleviated things somewhat at the supply end, now that Iraq is no longer embargoed. I'm not sure about the status of Libya presently, but removing their embargo should help. Of course, traditional supply/demand curves only work properly in free market economics. OPEC is a cartel, so all that goes out the window. I suspect price gouging is a major factor.
There is no way war is going to alleviate anything, least of all pain.--John Bessa (talk) 17:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
As for the banks, they should have been better regulated. The loan officers will issue loans to anyone they can; so long as they get their commission, why should they care? And the bank officers don't care either, because they know the federal government will bail them out with taxpayer money if things go south. And so it goes. Afalbrig (talk) 04:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the credit aspect is at best a locus for the crash, and for the most part a red-herring and successful attempt to blame the victims who were tricked into buying houses they could not afford by real estate developers and their marketers.--John Bessa (talk) 17:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Dollar Value

Since the dollar value depreciated 18% in 2007 while the US GDP growth was only 2%, the economy has in fact already entered a recession. It is not too early for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iv1607 (talk • contribs) 04:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Two quarters of negative GDP growth

There can only be a recession after two quarters of negative GDP growth - that hasn't happened yet, this page is too early... TuckerResearch (talk) 03:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This was previously discussed here. Truthanado (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Even if it was previously discussed, the article itself is wrongly named, because as of right now, there is no official recession. "we have yet to see confirmation that the economy has entered even a mild recession, let alone a severe downturn. The U.S. economy grew very weakly in the fourth quarter of last year, but it still moved ahead. Since then, we’ve seen overall losses in employment — the freshest monthly government data you can look at. The exact definition varies a bit, but generally speaking you need two quarters of negative growth to call it a recession. By definition, then, we won’t be able to confirm a recession until July at the earliest."[1] according to this, until july of 2008, the ecenomic can't be called a recession. Onopearls (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.180.210 (talk) 13:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
There are reliable and verifiable sources cited in the article that call this a recession. Whether an individual agrees with that assessment or not is original research; as an encyclopedia, we must follow reliable cited information. This topic was discussed previously as described above, with the result being to not change the article. I still see no consensus on this rename and it was against Wikipedia policy for an editor to unilaterally rename this article without first obtaining consensus. I suggest we move the article back to its original name. Before doing that, and to avoid an edit war, further discussion is appreciated. Truthanado (talk) 12:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
While they are reliable and verifiable, this does not mean that it is accurate. If you read my source from a reliable and verifiable source, it clearly states that there is not a recession... yet. It appears that the creator of this article jumped the gun. I also never said that i did or did not agree, i stated clear facts, with a source for what i said. If i am not mistaken, an encyclopedia is supposed to state "factual" information. thanks Onopearls (talk
The new central bank chairman admits that US economy is likely to shrink this year.[2] At this rate, the nominal GDP is unlikely to reach $16 trillion by the end of this decade, as predicted earlier by IMF.Anwar (talk) 15:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

the IMF says we have a financial and economic and governance crisis

"The IMF documents showed there's a 25 percent chance of a world recession because of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression" - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_L7vsEVUOVQ&refer=home

"The IMF is due to release its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook next week. Earlier in the week, the IMF cut its 2008 outlook for world economic growth for the second time this year -- a move that acknowledged housing and credit problems in the United States were exacting a heavy toll on the global economy. The IMF now expects global growth to slow to 3.7 percent this year, down from its January forecast of 4.1 percent. Brown said there was general agreement among the leaders on the need for new rules for disclosure and transparency for financial institutions. Brown is pressing for global, rather than national supervision of financial markets and for banks to come clean on the losses they have suffered due to the sub-prime crisis. Developing country leaders said rising food and energy prices were hitting poor countries hard." -http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL0539983320080405?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

some opinions

"Asian stocks sank on Monday to their lowest since August 2007 [...] 'We are only at the beginning stages of a crisis. It's totally impossible to forecast the world economy. I think, maybe, a world economic crisis is just beginning,' South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said" - http://africa.reuters.com/business/news/usnBAN724418.html

OPEC President Chakib Khelil says the world economic crisis will last at least until the end of the year. - http://africa.reuters.com/business/news/usnBAN028503.html

"Is this crisis simply part of the regular ebb and flow of doing business in a capitalist system? Minimizing the problem in this way, one year after the eruption of the subprime debacle, is no longer appropriate. Bankers, who like to see themselves as the true masters of the global economy, have driven the global economy into a calamity that is spreading to become a fundamental crisis for the entire financial system. [...] After years of deregulation, what we need now is re-regulation." -Wolfgang Reuter at http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080321_728917.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business

WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Added globalise and NPOV tags

I have added {{globalise}} and {{NPOV}} tags to the article; it is unclear whether it is supposed to be about a US economic crisis, or an international one. --Snigbrook (talk) 08:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


Article title

The title should be renamed to United States 2008 economic recession (crisis). Maybe financial crisis of 2008 or something like that. But there is no global recession, at least yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dilcaman (talk • contribs) 09:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Crisis ≠ Recession. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Airline failures

In the last paragraph of the overview, the wording of the discussion of small airlines that have ceased operations or filed for bankruptcy seems to imply that it is listing these events in chronological order (which would make sense in this article), but the events in that paragraph are very clearly not in order. Is there a reason for this? Also, the comment at the top of this page is out of place and unhelpful. If you would like to dispute the existence of the economic crisis, make a thread in the body of the page and do it correctly. Oneforlogic (talk) 13:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've removed that ridiculous comment and placed it here for reference:
There is no recession or economic crisis, This is just a down point in the econ., it happens deal with it. This is one of the most bullshit pages in all of wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.43.34 (talk) 02:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I fixed the order issue; someone changed the price of oil and associated date without reading the whole paragraph. That paragraph is turning into a disorganized list, though, and should probably be shortened and summarized. Links to the pages on the specific airlines should still be included. If someone believes the airline issues are sufficiently important by themselves, creating another current-event article about them may be a good idea. Any thoughts? I'll go ahead and change that paragraph in about 24 hours if I don't hear anything. Oneforlogic (talk) 15:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that a large portion of the article is about the airline crisis and i think that it probably have it's own article all together, that way it could be a organized list Rump1234 (talk) 23:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The loss of these four incredibly small carriers is far from one of the worst times in aviation history. Try Branniff or Eastern or the collapse of abotu 10 carriers in the early 80's follwoing deregulation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.228.202 (talk) 06:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sources and rewriting

Ok, so the paragraph on the airlines is too convoluted and has too few sources for me to fix it without several hours of searching for sources and checking facts. I'm now of the opinion that the entire overview section needs more and more specific citations, too, especially considering that this is still a fairly controversial topic, so I've added the tag for it. Really, though, anyone who takes the time to do the fact checking should probably completely rewrite the relevant section of the article, paying more attention to self consistency and clear wording within sections. I'll go ahead and add that tag, too. Oneforlogic (talk) 18:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Economic crisis or Energy crisis?

Is this article about an energy crisis or an economic crisis? The title says Econ, but the first line of the lead says Energy. Most of the article talks about an Econ crisis, so I'm inclined to fix the first line to match. NJGW (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Useful Sources for the Article

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2008/05/credit-crisis-timeline.html 82.46.67.74 (talk) 21:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Big picture as of mid-2008

This is a curious and yet I think essential page. There are a number of things happening at once - the credit crunch, global inflation, and high commodity prices, as well as the possibility of a US recession - and it is somewhat challenging to sort out the relationships. The price of food and oil I think is what justifies the name 'crisis' more than any other aspect, otherwise we'd just be talking about a 'recession' or a 'slowdown'. Price spikes in food and oil already have their own pages, as does the credit crunch, but there are no other pages covering 'US economic slowdown of 2008' or 'global inflation of 2007-2008'.

While there is apparently no limit to the bad economic news for the USA right now (an official bear market in stocks, bad news at the GSEs just being the latest), the state of the rest of the world needs to be acknowledged. With Chinese economic growth still averaging at 10% per year, it would be hard to describe them as being in a crisis of any sort. The European Union also faces challenges but seems better off than the USA (compare euro to dollar, for example). It is certainly conceivable that the commodity super-spike will kill off economic growth everywhere outside the oil exporters (though they would have to be careless for that to happen), but it hasn't happened yet. What seems more likely is that the world economy is undergoing some form of reorganization, in which much more power will accrue to energy exporters, the USA will stagnate for a while compared to the EU, and the industrializing BRIC countries will continue to grow rapidly. There are also large structural changes looming, like the adoption of emissions trading by the next US administration and the negotiation of a successor to the Kyoto protocol.

So, to try to sum up, there are a number of identifiably distinct components to the alleged 'economic crisis of 2008'.

1) USA's economic troubles, which are in a class by themselves.

2) The financial and mild inflationary worries being experienced by most other developed countries, due to the credit crunch and the commodity spike.

3) The even higher levels of inflation being experienced by developing countries, which in the oil exporters are arising mostly from the accumulation of foreign reserves faster than they can be assimilated, but which in the others arise from the commodity spike.

4) The genuinely global wave of unrest and concern which has come this year on account of high food prices and very high oil prices. We don't know yet if that is going to give us the 'long emergency' anticipated by peak oil watchers, or if it is just an overall readjustment for the global economy and a true crisis only for a few particular countries.

If I feel sufficiently inspired, I may attempt to reorganize the article around those four components. Another alternative would be simply to rename it as 'World economy of 2008' (thus potentially part of a series), and to move the rhetoric of crisis from the title into the body of the article. Mporter (talk) 13:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm now thinking the appropriate headings would be 'US recession?', 'Global financial problems', 'Global inflation', and 'High commodity prices'. Many of the existing subsections would fit under 'US recession?', and 'High commodity prices' would begin by linking to the articles on food and oil prices, and could also have a subsection on sustainability perspectives. Mporter (talk) 13:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've built on NJGW's changes in order to start imposing this structure. A few points

  • I began by trying to retain most existing material, just moving it around, but I did remove outright a lot of what was under "Causes", such as specific commodity records and a statement that after the credit crunch, investors fled into commodities. Those observations ought to be reinstated, but perhaps in an updated form.
  • The three articles listed as arguing that there is an environmental component to the 2008 economic crisis said no such thing, they simply said that many Americans believed a recession had already arrived, and were moved accordingly, to the section on US recession.
  • I believe the section on airline failures actually belongs in Oil price increases since 2003, as the problems stem from the cost of fuel.
  • There is nothing yet on 'global financial problems of 2008'. There ought to be, but that topic can be covered mostly with a link to pages such as subprime crisis impact timeline. Mporter (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The title of this article

In my opinion the article should be changed (for the time being) to 2008 United States Financial Crisis.

The overall US economy down to the individual level is NOT in an economic crisis yet: there is no surge in unemployment (like doubling), no huge rise in poverty, no serious social unrest, etc, etc.

There are expectations of 8% unemployment; also American workers may simply be moving into lower income brackets and less significant jobs, rather than losing jobs outright. This is the goal of today's globalism, is it not?--John Bessa (talk) 01:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

But it is very clear that the US is in an extremely serious Financial crisis: the US dollar losing HALF it's value against all the currencies of the globe, a massive credit crunch, no credit lending, banks failing or at risk, mortgage institutions like Freddie and Fannie collapsing, foreclosures at all time highs, stock market plunging on a daily basis, no new IPOS, etc, etc, etc. I think it is clear it is a grave financial crisis. The dugout (talk) 14:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. It also follows the naming convention of 1973 energy crisis and 1979 energy crisis etc. NJGW (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Disagree with the US-only part. Credit, liquidity, high oil prices, volatility and inflationary problems are pretty much universal at this stage. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 00:05, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Expanded beyond U.S.

I made a large addition to cover many of the problems in Europe and also included problems in New Zealand and South Africa. Since Denmark is in a recession and New Zealand and Ireland are likely to end up in one this seems to be particularly important. However, there's still a lot which could be covered, however this should help give the article more global perspective.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Meltdown Monday

Should this term be in the article? An editor removed it here [3]. I suggest it be placed back into the article. Bearian (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There have been other meltdown mondays in the past (one of them was a few weeks before this one), most notably in 1987, so I don't see any notable reason to keep the phrase. If the court of expert financial analyst opinion (or barring that, press hacks) deem it to be the new real meltdown monday... then so be it. But otherwise it's a bit premature. Wikipedia is not for popularizing phrases. NJGW (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Another issue: it would be pretty tricky to phrase right and source anyway. Something like "the press quickly dubbed as M.M." with a ref saying that the press quickly dubbed as... NJGW (talk) 00:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Assistance requested

Hey -- I'm trying to cleanup and expand the List of entities involved in 2007-2008 financial crises, and seeing as this article is closely related to that list, perhaps some of you here would like to help? --Wassermann (talk) 08:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Citation

{{editsemiprotected}}

The source of the statement: "Alan Greenspan, ex-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lyle Gramley, a former board member of the U. S. Federal Reserve, stated in March 2008 that the 2008 financial crisis in the United States is likely to be judged as the harshest since the end of World War II." Is "We will never have a perfect model of risk," by Alan Greenspan, Financial Times, March 16, 2008. Link: [4] Lyle Gramley was not involved in the statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cellotim (talk • contribs)

 Done [5], thanks for the information. ~ mazca t | c 19:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

2008 Financial Crisis

The Financial Rescue or Financial Bailout passed the House of Representative passed on Friday, October 3, and was sent to President Bush for signing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.93.141.77 (talk) 03:48, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal: merge with January 2008 stock market volatility

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to merge, but I see the merge has occured here. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 17:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The article January 2008 stock market volatility should be merged into this article, as it is essentially a section of this page, but for some reason has its own article. --Pwnage8 (talk) 13:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe a better place for January 2008 stock market volatility is eventually within Financial_crisis_of_2007-2008. I'm sure it will all become more clear where these belong, eventually. For now, maybe leaving it separate is best while the rest is still 'developing'? —siroχo 00:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Siroxo. Please see the discussion already in place which discusses the naming issues involved (maybe somebody will combine all these threads). NJGW (talk) 20:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Any truth to the claim that Islamic Banks are relatively unaffected?

It's claimed that because Islamic banks are not involved in stocks and bonds, nor the selling or buying of debt, they are effectively sheltered from the crisis. It's been stated that while not completely immune to the effects of the crisis due to the interconnectedness of the market, they are relatively safe. http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=6&id=14245 How true is any of this? 92.8.57.124 (talk) 15:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I found this from September 18[6], stating that financial issues are starting to show in the UAE. I suppose that any bank that makes no loans and keeps all it's cash in a vault won't have the problem of spreading itself too thin... but it seems the Islamic banks (if they hold to their ideals) are only holding tanks for cash and not really involved in the markets. Any big investors (Muslim or not) would have money all over the place, and the place money is getting lost is in bad investments rather than closing banks. So the possibility that "Islamic" banks are unaffected has questionable notability/relevace to this article... we could just as easily say that the space under your mattress is unaffected. NJGW (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This is interesting... while Iran's stock market is up 20% for the year, the facts that banks give more interest on deposits than they take on loans, and the country's oil-revenue-dependent economy depends hadn't been planning on oil prices falling $60, inflation is at 25% for 2008 so far. So again, relatively unaffected looks like it means relatively nothing. NJGW (talk) 14:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
This is also interesting --> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7677181.stm (Hypnosadist) 23:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Stock market volatility

Is there an article relating to the stock market declines, in respect to the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P 500? There's an article on the January 2008 volatility, but nothing on this volatility that I can find. --Son (talk) 20:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Global financial crisis of September-October 2008, but don't get too attached to the title... the talk page already has a discussion where the consensus is that the title should be changed (and the whole article probably merged with this one or Financial crisis of 2007-2008), but it's important to let economists and historians give a name to the period rather than Wikipedians. NJGW (talk) 20:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Rename this page

Rename this page "The Great Depression of 2008".

Honestly, it's coming...we're all done for.

MamaVeemon (talk)

Absolutely not. That would be original research, which is forbidden on Wikipedia, and would also violate WP:CRYSTAL. --Pwnage8 (talk) 23:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Everything on this page is original research, which is a good thing, and what I call "new information research development," or the beginnings of knowledge construction. I think it is original research that is done for, and the capital constructs that support it. Capitalism itself will have to change: for global trade to survive, reciprocity will have to be implemented as global law where nations are allowed to protect their economies from the "wolves." But then, what do we need to global capital for anyway--anywhere you look on this page, globalism did it, and will do it again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Bessa (talk • contribs) 14:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Beyond that, this article is about things that happened in 2008, not the repercussions of those events over the next 10 years (which is what a depression is). "Depression of 2008" is just nonsense, unless it's already happened... in which case a different article than this one will cover it (though that's not to say this article isn't still due for a rename to differentiate it from the financial crisis of 2007-2008 article and what the MamaVeemon's of the world think this article is about). NJGW (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
How about now? We're getting better. We probably will be evening out soon, though. --72.73.75.55 (talk) 00:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
n a recession "getting better" is something you don't really want to see happen to soon. When things "get better" theres ussualy a ssudden dip, and thne a real get better. And thne we get ot go behind the smoke screen of "getting better" in the world where the auto industry is fully capable of falling part with GM expecting to barely stay afloat in the current situation and ford enough to get through 2009; or should I remind that germany has officlay delcared itself in recession.--Jakezing (talk) 02:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I STRONGLY urge the O-Great-Wiki-Auditors to henceforth delete ANY article that professes to make statements about "the great this or that of year-we-are-presently-in". That this article was created at the beginning of the 2008, even though by the end of 2008 there remains some debate about whether or not the world is IN a recession (alright, the UK & Ireland are now), is simply proof of the folly of publishing retrospective articles about current events. For Pete's sake, this is meant to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA, sage, thoughtful and considered, not rushing to frakkin' judgement about what might be!!! Aragond) 22:02, 24 January 2009

Hoy. Anyone notice how the largest subsection in the entire article was about comparisons to the Great Depression? Someone was having a field day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.107.187.74 (talk) 18:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Name redux: redirects

Relating to the above thread, I've noticed that an editor has created the following redirects to Economic crisis of 2008: The Second Great Depression, Great Depression of 2008 and 2008 Great Depression. Can anyone advise whether these are appropriate? -- Molotron 17:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I vote that it is not, and reiterate my statement that it is folly to permit the authoring of retrospective articles (even redirects) for current events. Aragond) 21:50, 24 January 2009

Ireland first EU nation in recession

Looks official. NJGW (talk) 05:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


assigning blame

There is a curious lack of blame; much prose and talk is in the passive voice ..the crisis happened.. this is not correct; specific people did specific things. It is not to early for an encyclopedia to start working on this. 1) Ordinary Americans did risky things, and took out loans they couldn't afford to pay back. Some were scoundrels or worse (having maxed the credit card on frivolity, they took out a home loan). Others, perhaps, were elderly and confused by the sales guy, or out of work, or had medical bills. 2) Bankers - every single loan was signed off on by someone at the bank. In many cases, with people applying for huge somes, it should have been clear that the loan was, on its face, ludicrous, if not fradulent. 3) Politicians, mostly GOP who repealed Glass Steagall, but helped by anyone who took money from fannie freddie. 4) CEOS at large companies. My view is that these people - probably including Sec. Paulson - are the real villians, as they, just like ordinary americans, engaged in risky behavour. There is a very clear example of such behavour at AIG in a 27 Sept story in the New York Times(The Reckoning Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk By GRETCHEN MORGENSON ) Cinnamon colbert (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be talking about the current credit crunch, not this article. There is some disccusion in either the talk page of that article or the broader financial crisis of 2007-2008 article, so feel free to got there, provide a RS and propose some edits. NJGW (talk) 17:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with you NJGW, what cinnamon says applies to this article as well. Cinnamon don't forget the effects of OPEC and the oil price and the Iraq war (it not only effected the oil price but america's image). (Hypnosadist) 18:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Greenspan seems to think that a belief in the wisdom of the market is to blame: AP video NJGW (talk) 18:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

5)There is no detailed mention of the mechanisms surrounding mortgages and derivatives, nor failures to deliver. I submit Susanne Trimbath's Article for review: "Blame Wall Street's Phantom Bonds for the Credit Crisis" http://www.newgeography.com/content/00436-blame-wall-streets-phantom-bonds-credit-crisis Of note is the assertion that a given mortgage has been "insured" 9 times over. She worked for FRB and for DTCC, with a credible doctorate from NY. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.209.24.42 (talk) 23:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Updates on Latin America

Wouldn't anyone put information about the effects of the crisis in Latin America? I would, but I'm very occupied. 201.218.73.3 (talk) 20:04, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you at least give us some sources to work with? NJGW (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Just work with the tables found in the final pages of The Economist. The Financial Times has covered Latin America this week. Both exchange rates to the US dollar and stock market indexes have fallen around 40% in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil,..., as compared to Dec 2007. user:Mariordo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.172.69.182 (talk) 21:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent text removal

The following text was removed and called non-notable:

It has also been argued that the root cause of the crisis is [[overproduction]] of goods caused by [[globalization]].<ref>''See''http://focusweb.org/afterthoughts-a-primer-on-the-wall-street-meltdown.html?Itemid=92</ref> Professor [[Herman Daly]] suggests that it is not actually an economic crisis, but a crisis of [[Exponential growth|overgrowth]] beyond sustainable ecological limits.<ref>''See''http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4617</ref>

Many [[libertarians]], including Congressman and former 2008 Presidential candidate [[Ron Paul]]<ref>http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul128.html</ref> and [[Peter Schiff]] in his book Crash Proof, predicted the crisis prior to its occurrence. They are critical of theories that the free market caused the crisis <ref>http://www.lewrockwell.com/reisman/reisman45.html</ref> and instead argue that the Federal Reserve's printing of money out of thin air and the [[Community Reinvestment Act]] are the primary causes of the crisis.<ref>http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/recession-reader.html</ref>

Lets work backwards. There is a paragraph about predictions Ron Paul made to a House Financial Services Committee Hearing in 2003:

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.

How is this not notable?

The first paragraph is related to the philosophies behind modern versions of Malthusian catastrophes. In of itself a notable subject and these predictions have long been made in relation to petroleum by the likes of Doomers, but here we have two professors talking about how overproduction in general is a problem. Let's see who else agrees: a U-Mass professor, an Indiana University professor, a UCSB professor... these are just from the first 30 hits of 352 titles on Google Scholar matching 'economic OR financial crisis overproduction' and published in 2008.[7] I have no idea how this could be considered a non-notable issue. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It did seem the economy was somewhat overheated. The big oil runup was evidence of that. That was certainly unsustainable. Fred Talk 22:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I re-added this but it must have been RV'ed again because i think this is a notable POV by notable academics. (Hypnosadist) 06:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Its non-notable because the figures in question aren't notable. I'm removing it. Whether or not its correct is not relevant. If you want to discuss whether the random Indiana U prof is notable as a commentator on this marginal view of crises, go ahead. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:46, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Came here because one of my neighbors blamed the Community Reinvestment Act a few days ago. Now, I know this doesn't make it notable enough to be included here, just explaining. You can see, tho, that the theory is notable enough for many mainstream news outlets to have issued editorials and columns - the New York TImes [8], the Chicago Tribune [9], Business Week [10],etc. Maybe someone could summarize the WP entry at [11]
The prediction claims, tho - a G search of "predicted 2008 economic crisis year" [12] generates so many notables claiming to have predicted it - let's not go there. We could easily end up with several hundred claims. Novickas (talk) 23:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Let's see. Op-eds in the Chicago Tribune pointing out that such well-known economic experts as George Will and Ann Coulter are using the CRA as a political tool are a reason to keep it out, not keep it in. This is a worldwide academic project, not a random battleground for petty American politics. These are not notable views in terms of the scale of the crisis. As should be plainly obvious. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:33, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Forecasts

The "Official forecasts" section mentions a "noted economist Russell Hammond", however I'm unable to find any information about this guy through any other source, even CNBC where he is said to have made his forecast. Any input on this? 93.141.121.180 (talk) 19:00, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

There are no sources. This should be verified or removed.Ltwin (talk) 04:41, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Capitalism is over

Communism went first. Now Capitalism is bankrupt now too and needs a massive bailout. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.196.152 (talk) 18:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Communism failed because of its hypocritical leaders and the lies made by the goverments.--Jakezing (talk) 23:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
please don't engage in general discussions here -- only issues directly related to article content. 75.36.147.191 (talk) 02:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)thanks
OK, boss! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.41.247 (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
How is discussion of the possible collapse of the system now called into question by the (as yet incomplete) event which is the subject of the article in any way improper for this talk page? FTR "communist state" is an oxymoron in the opinion of many who have made a more than superficial study of socialism. In that sense, there never has been a "communist state" and so the failures of deformed workers states like the soviet union or the PRC are not failures of a thing that has not and could not in principle be realized. Moreover, said global recession equivalent to or greater than the Great Depression requires that no one anywhere, not just in the United States take the title of this section with any seriousness. That is a stretch since there are some actors on the economic stage ATM who either claim to be communist (i.e long past capitalism) or on the road to socialism and hence communism (e.g. countries of Central and South America). So the attempt to suppress the first individuals above is misguided at best. Lycurgus (talk) 07:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps a better title for the article would be "U.S. Economic Events of 2008-2009" especially as that country was both the source of the disturbance and the place it has been first declared. Nobody so far as I know is revising Chinese growth figures for the first half of 2008 (to any less than 9%, down from having missed the 8% target of the previous year at 11.4 %) and even with growth halved that economy will still have twice the average growth rate of the U.S. during the recent bubble. However a search at the time of this writing indicates that Chinese GDP is forecast to grow 7-7.5% in 2009. Also the NBER calling an actual recession as opposed to a trough in the biz cycle is odd, especially in view of the fact that there was small but definitely positive net growth over the last four quarters and no two of consecutive retraction. In any case, as it stands now, on the basis of the title it deserves a globalize tag, although the fact that some countries are projecting substantial growth is clear in the article text. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 07:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Update: PRC growth for 2009 is currently projected by the IMF to be 6.7%. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 12:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

you're all ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.241.250.101 (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

U.S. Economic recession is not possible, it's already here

Has it not been validated that the U.S. is in recession? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.75.149 (talk) 00:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The standard technical definition is two quarters of negative growth -- don't have figures but this fall will probably be the first quarter of negative growth. 75.36.147.191 (talk) 02:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)thanks
The "technical" specifics of economic measurement especially when applied to policy making may have gotten us into this problem in the first place; I think economic measurement concepts have to be rewritten to get out of this dilemma.--John Bessa (talk) 01:07, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
^ Opinion. 220.238.18.235 (talk) 11:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
No. The NBER says the US's 73 month-long period of consecutive months of growth ended in January 2008, but there has yet to be a wide concensus that the US is presently IN recession. OTOH, the UK and Ireland are, as of end-2008.
Economic measurements and Indexes becoming meaningless: I live in the State of Connecticut, which is an annex of Wall Street, with the Hedge Funds here. Connecticut went into a recession six to nine months before the DOW Index crashed, and despite being among the richest states in the US, should technically be in a depression. I live in the NW corner, which is mountainous, and mountain people technically live and thrive in a nearly cashless society--except for medicine and bank financing: the doctors and bankers rape these people, a case for socialism in the US, and perhaps capital punishment for the crimes of capital.--John Bessa (talk) 14:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Running Total of Nationalizations?

We've been hearing about the US, Britain, etc. taking over institutions.

That would be socialism, which will never happen in the US. The government is simply buying stock, and with it all it can do is attend stock-holder meetings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Bessa (talk • contribs) 01:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

What I'm not finding anywhere is a ledger sheet of just how much (the US government in particular) has nationalized so far.

What percentage of the US banking sector, and financial sector, is owned by the US government now?

In fact, strangely I don't even see the word "nationalization" used anywhere in reference to any of the US governments actions -- despite it just nationalizing another 3 Californian savings & loans last week -- despite just "investing" 25 billion in Citibank which was something like half its value at that time... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.147.191 (talk) 02:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Causes of the crisis

I think this is the natural direction for this article though it may not be appropriate as it breaks the Wikipedia rule of "no original research" because answers are being provided by the editors as the crisis continues: speculation. Also, I have recently read Obama's economic solutions, and also scanned is new economic advisers, and it seems as if attempts to resolve the crisis will be in historical terms, perhaps a rerun of the New Deal.

My own take is that the crisis is the direct cause of US economic stupidity: in the early 2000s when the incredibly valuable, and original, communications technology industry was handed over to the Indian upper-class. This followed of course the exporting of America's other valuable asset, manufacturing, notably to China.
For a while American savings accounts floated the US economy, then credit took over, and hence the "credit crunch." Now that there is a credit shortage, there really is nowhere to go with the present global economy. I posted my own observations of the US economy while traveling as a trucker after the tech crash on the Crash 2008 page --John Bessa (talk) 02:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The reform of the U.S. bankrupcy laws also contributed.

This article says it was mainly high fuel costs, and a credit crunch by investment banks. But the bankruptcy law reforms of 2005 (the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act) also played a big part. One can take a mere glance at evening U.S. television and see this. From the 'zillions' of ads for "Pay-day loans" to all the offers for debt management counciling. Under the old bankruptcy regime persons usually were guaranteed of being able to keep their homes but had to negotiate with creditors on other things. One source where all of this was supported was one of the documentaries In Debt We Trust, The Corporation or TIME-BOMB: America's Debt Crises, Causes, Consequences and Solutions I can't remember which. Once most people could no longer file for bankruptcy and actually discharge that debt is when this all turned into a crisis. CaribDigita (talk) 07:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The Corporation is an excellent documentary and useful resource, but inadvertently defeats its own case. The people in it rally against the use of poor nations for manufacturing as slavery, and promote better treatment for them. But the profit margins of "slavery" in the global market are so slim that as soon as the poor areas got off the groud, the wealthy corporations could no longer realize a profit and had to move on to virgin territory for their "slavery"--a clearly inefficient scheme. Globalization profits are realized at such huge environmental and cultural costs and are so marginal that only a modicum of "protection" would eliminate them. None-the-less, The Corporation implies that nations targeted for "slavery" ultimately benefited, at least when it as made. Perhaps these regions are "back to scratch" now that the "global welfare scheme" has collapsed with America.--John Bessa (talk) 18:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
To rebuild the World, America has to redesign trade with trade balance, or reciprocity. Rebuilding the World is what the World is expecting from America with the Obama election, but America can't because America has for some reason become economically suicidal. I believe the best source for studying the American suicidal phenomena since 2000 is not the trade liberalists of Wall Street, but the social liberals of Nation Public Radio: why do NPR reporters still insist in deflating the American economy for the benefit of other economies when it is becoming obvious that addiction to American trade can be catastrophic for addicted nations when Americans run out of money and credit? I point out elsewhere how this is happening to Canada. To understand the motivation, one has to look for participants: to "follow the money" as the late WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl said. Perhaps a survey of NPRs listeners might give clues as well.--John Bessa (talk) 18:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

NBER declares recession

Can we move this page back to Recession of 2008 now?

(claiming the above anon comment) Wkdewey (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Economic governance in the "Causes" section

In what way the G20 summit is a cause of the crisis? If anything it's a consequence of it! On the other hand I don't see the credit crunch generated by the subprime crisis in the cause section when it is most likely one. Matthieu (talk) 20:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move to Late 2000s recession Parsecboy (talk) 12:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


Economic crisis of 2008 → Recession of 2008 — That was the original title of the article. It was moved because the recession hadn't been declared yet, but now it has. Also, too many "crisis" articles are confusing and this is too likely to be confused with, say, Global financial crisis of 2008 — Wkdewey (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Support as long as you agree to change it to Depression of 2008 as soon as the NBER realizes that it is actually a depression. It took them a year to figure out that it was a recession. Hopefully it will no longer be a depression when they figure out that it was one, sometime next year. 199.125.109.58 (talk) 01:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't think the NBER declares depressions. You'd just have to rely on a preponderance of reliable sources calling it a depression (which hasn't happened yet). Wkdewey (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Nobody cares? I'd move it myself but the page is move protected (because of one of our resident vandals rather than a move war); still, I think I'm supposed to let this run. Wkdewey (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

2000s

As a non-native speaker, I wonder. Is that really how you say 2000-2009? Well, every day learn new things. I would have thought "late 2000s" would mean something like 2800-2999. --SLi (talk) 01:16, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes this usage would be relatively unambiguous to a speaker of american english, distinct from the "twenty-teens" (following decade), "nineteen-nineties" (prior decade), and late third millenium (e.g. 2800-3000 of the Christian calendar, in the extreme unlikelihood it is still in use then). 72.228.150.44 (talk) 07:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
2000 - 2009 should be called the "twenty hundreds", and 2010 - 2019 the "twenty tens". This is because 1900 - 1909 was the nineteen hundreds and likewise 1910 - 1919 was the nineteen tens etc. and 1990 - 1999 the nineteen nineties. Calling 2000 - 2009 "the noughties" is quite frankly stupid and does not follow the convention of previous centuries. Seth Whales (talk) 13:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Where is "the noughties" being proposed/used, this is the first I've heard of it? 72.228.150.44 (talk) 19:32, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, no one has proposed "the noughties", but I thought I would add it, just for the hell of it. Seth Whales (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
As a native speaker, I agree that the title of this article is odd. Compare with the term "late 1900s" which to my mind means towards the end of the 20th Century (e.g. 1980-1999). So to me, late 2000s means 2080-2099 or thereabouts (or it mean 2800-2999 as you suggest too). And as per WP:COMMONNAME, who exactly is calling this event the "late 2000s recession". This is the first I've seen that phrase used. The most common term I've seen would be "Global Economic Crisis", and since we need a date, how about 2008-09 i.e. 2008-09 Global Economic Crisis? 163.1.146.123 (talk) 03:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
AFAIK, "late 1900s" is not in common use and my first association with it is not "the late 20th century" or the "the nineties". For me, also a native speaker, actually "1900s" would refer the first decade of the 20th century so that is consistent with the usage here. The common orientation is toward the decade, which is at the scale of a current human life, not the century or millenium. For this reason "1900s" and "2000s" refer more or less clearly to the first decades of the respective centuries. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 12:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I am a native English speaker (Canadian), and I think the term "late 2000s" is descriptive of the end of this millennium. As far as I know, this millennium (the millennium which began in the year 2000) just started, and as such it's the 'early 2000s'. Regarding the previous comments about the naming of decades citing the nineteen-nineties as examples... what would you call the decade from 1900 to the end of 1909? 'the nineteen-zeroes'? 'the nineteen-singles'? Whoever said: "2000 - 2009 should be called the "twenty hundreds", and 2010 - 2019 the "twenty tens". This is because 1900 - 1909 was the nineteen hundreds" was trolling.--Knobula (talk) 06:39, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Map of countries in recession

How come France is marked in red? As far as I remember the economy actually grew during Q3 2008 and Q1. Which makes it impossible to qualify for a recession in 2008, in 2009 maybe (most certainly) but in 2008? Matthieu (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand what was done since Greece is also shown in recession (and it technicaly isn't either), the eurozone, which is as a whole in recession, has been treated as a single country here. Since the map is about countries in recession and not "economic entities" I added a note to reflect that. Matthieu (talk) 14:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Someone had removed it and it's been reposted, but it's still incorrect. Even if France's economy contracted during Q4 (apparently around 1.1% less) it still can't be in a recession because of the Q3 growth of 0.14%. Matthieu (talk) 21:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

names of recession

In Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the 2008 Recession is called "金融海啸", which literally means "financial tsunami". Should this be mentioned in a section specifically to China, and/or on localized terms? Additionally, I think the current link to the ZH Wiki is incorrect (it leads to a page that doesn't exist, a redlink). -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 00:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed this.--Danaman5 (talk) 05:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Many of us who lived through the real December 2004 tsunami, or who lost friends and family then, find "金融海啸" and "financial tsunami" quite offensive. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Krugman

Paul Krugman shouldn't be mentioned by name in the lead. There are many Nobel Laureates who stated their opinion about current crisis and Krugman shouldn't be singled out. -- Vision Thing -- 14:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Would you be averse to a section about the possibility of this recession turning into a depression? Krugman and other economists have argued that this may turn into a depression. We could balance it with others who say it won't or can't turn into a depression. JCDenton2052 (talk) 17:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

split articles by continent

This article is very long, have an asia, european, north american, etc page(s)--Levineps (talk) 19:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, I've done that. It should also help bring the focus more on the global causes and effects of the recession, and less on economic reports from individual countries. - SimonP (talk) 15:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Map

Name change/Merge Proposal

Late 2000s recession seems to be a stop-gap name for the article (as well as being misleading). Propose moving to "2008-09 Global Financial Crisis" 202.67.92.67 (talk) 12:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I've created Conjuncture (2008-2009) and will provide background services but prefer that the editors of the two articles work out the front matter. My suggestion is that this article have an economic (or whatever else it seems to be doing well currently) focus. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 15:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
What about Late 2000s depression? [15] JCDenton2052 (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I am doing a lot of work over at the Wikiversity and I am learning to allow ideas time to settle to make sure the correct decisions are made with respect to organization, especially if changes may become permanent.

What is important here is that we have one of the best discussions going that I have seen in the Internet, ever, and all factors are being presented ways that participants can pull together components to form what they believe to be the correct picture. Pulling together these disparate issues is the work that is adding value, and not the name.

This crash may ultimately get its own name, such as the "Great Depression," or the "Teapot Dome" did; it is a unique phenomena.

In fact, if anyone wants to continue on the Wikiversity, where idea development is the name of the game, then by all means...--John Bessa (talk) 15:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"Late 2000s recession" ...hurmpfff....it wasn't all bad. You should have witnessed the Mars real estate crash in the year 2540, or the hyperspace speculative bubble of 2811. My point is that "late 2000s" sounds like anytime towards the end of the millenia. Kransky (talk) 12:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully through the Information Soceity we can get to the root of the problem and end the economic "swings" that keep ratcheting power to the elite, diluting popular self-determination, destroying the environment, and shrinking real value while inflating economic numbers.--John Bessa (talk) 18:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
This is big-endian of me, but article would be more accurately named Early 2000s Recession, early referring both to the millennium and the century. Unfortunately there's no consensus whatsoever on the name of the first decade of the 21st century, and Early 21st Century Global Recession (or Depression) is cumbersome. kencf0618 (talk) 14:23, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this isn't a crisis, just a wake-up call. Perhaps this is all a good thing. Growth is proved to be unsustainable by the finite nature of the planet, and growth is questionable if you are an average person, and not a billionaire or an economist. Let's consider positive names for the "crisis."--John Bessa (talk) 21:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the best name for this article would be to call it "The Great Recession", it signifies how deep this recession is and acknowledges that it is still not as bad as The Great Depression. Also, it is a lot easier to say.Carlitos (talk) 00:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The collapse of trade and manufacturing

This article has fallen behind events, in failing to sufficiently highlight the collapse in world trade, which is especially affecting China, Japan, and Korea. It should also say something about how the collapse in commodity prices has caused troubles for the ambitious plans of major oil producers; Russia and the UAE come to mind. Some of this information exists in the regional articles ('Late 2000s recession in...') - which should probably get their own section in the template - but there are many new developments as well. I will try to write something but that may take a while, so input from others would be welcome. Mporter (talk) 09:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Crisis vs recession

I think that the word "recession" is not the most accurate word for this article. The article and subarticles deal mostly with the economic crisis, in all its facets (foreclosures, unemployment, trade, budget deficits, etc.), not just with the recession itself (negative economic growth). Of course, these phenomena are related, but it needs to be made clear that primarily NA and WE are affected by a recession (and not even all European countries), while the rest of the world primarily faces a steep decline in positive growth. Nevertheless, the latteralso suffers from rising unemployment, a spiking number of foreclosures and falling trade. In addition, there is no global recession (if I am correct, a .4% growth is forecast, the lowest relative growth since WW II), but there is without any doubt a global economic crisis raging on. So I propose to rename the article to the Late 2000s global economic crisis. Sijo Ripa (talk) 12:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The reason why i put Some countries not in Recession, in recession

For all those who are complaining about Belgium and France and other countries in Red, they are supposed to be red. They are part of the Eurozone. And the Eurozone IS in recession. Witch Is why they are in red. Thank you.--BubbleDude22 (talk) 23:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Political interpretation

This arbitrary bundle of various events as a single phenomenon in a "Political instability related to the economic crisis" section seems an original research and a politicization under the wikipedia label. What if some take it as a source and say "wikipedia declares that the world is politically unstable ?" --Pgreenfinch (talk) 10:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It is a matter of fact that the economic crisis is threatening political stability all over the world. The countries feeling the crisis earliest or most acutely have already had a change of government, like Iceland. Some have seen months of riots already, like Greece. Cosmic Magician (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Iceland, 300,000 inhabitants. --Pgreenfinch (talk) 20:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada

Canada is not officially in recession, yet the world map shows that Canada is. Please fix this. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP.

2nd quarter = 0.1% decline 3rd quarter = 0.3% increase 4th quarter = 3.4% decrease

As you can see, this is not two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP. Canada is offically NOT in a recession. This article is very misleading!

Sources:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090302/wl_canada_afp/canadaeconomygrowth_20090302211117 http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/12/01/gdp-quarter-three.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.75.103 (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Great Depression cruft

The academic journals have nothing I've seen that says we're heading to a "Great Depression 2". The examples in the last section of this article are not economists saying "it's going to happen!!!" but rather economists saying this little detail or the other is similar (not the same). The insertion of unemployment rates going up fast is not a usable statistic for saying that we're heading to a great depression, because unemployment is still at comparable rates to several other recessions in the US since WWII. Let's try to be objective here and leave the emotions and misreadings out of this please. If and when it is a depression, that's the time to say so. NJGW (talk) 01:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You have completely mischaracterized my additions to the article. Additionally, I'm unaware of WP:RS being changed to only allow academic journals. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
There were multiple examples of wp:SYN and misinformation. For example, John Williams is a composer, and the John Williams you're talking about is not an economist as far as I can tell. Notice that I didn't ever say that RS applies to academic journals, but I did say that only the only sources I've seen actually comparing to the great depression are in the academic journals. The other examples in the section are nothing more that casual examples of "name dropping" to illustrate a point, not to say "this is like the great depression... run for the hills!!!" NJGW (talk) 03:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
JC, do you care to comment on all the incredible misreadings of sources I just had to clear out of this section? It is very similar to the large amounts of distortions of sources I cleaned up when I first edited the section. NJGW (talk) 10:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
You are the one who is misreading sources. Would you care to explain your personal attacks on me in your inaccurate edit summaries? JCDenton2052 (talk) 10:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to stand by all my edit summaries. They're in the history and very detailed and easy to follow, so I won't repeat them here. If you have a particular one you find issue with (which I seriously doubt you honestly could), please feel free to list it here. NJGW (talk) 10:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
In the future, please point out which of my specific edits you have issues with, rather than blanking all of my additions. JCDenton2052 (talk) 21:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

JC, when you say you're correcting a misreading, but instead just move some things and add a ref that uses some CNET journalist to contradict what economists say, you're being dishonest.[16] All your other edits say "Balance", but the last two time I had to clean out all your unbalanced cruft and mistakes. I'm not going to bother going through line by line to correct your further mistakes. Please don't do this anymore, and stop pretending like there aren't serious issues with your edits. NJGW (talk) 18:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually this section seems to be a crystal ball speculation and I don't see its interest. I suppose that if it was a stand alone article it is highly probable that it would be proposed for deletion. Same thing btw for the "political instability..." section, another "cruft" I would say. All that brings more confusion than information about the current economic recession. --Pgreenfinch (talk) 18:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
A great deal of it is, just as you say, examples of people saying "it could become worse!" That stuff should all go, as there's not nearly enough context for readers to fully appreciate the issues involved (such as all the hedging these commentators are also making at the same time). There are some issues that might be worth at least mentioning in other places in the article though. NJGW (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi Pgreenfinch, I'm afraid this section is more than just speculation. What we have on our hands is the most serious economic event in several generations. Reactions by the economics profession, especially those who predicted such an outcome, matter.Cosmic Magician (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
CM, You're right of course that it's more than just speculation, but what is speculation should be removed. To say that this section is the place to put all the reactions is a huge POV push though, because it suggests an a priori acceptance of the comparison. NJGW (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi NJGW the art is in striking the right balance between differing viewpoints of notable contributors. Importantly, we should avoid trying to become the arbiters of the truth, whatever it may in the end be. Cosmic Magician (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
NJGW, when you say you're correcting my supposed "reading comprehension problems" by blanking all of my good faith additions, adding information that's not in your sources, and unbalancing the section towards your POV, you are acting in bad faith. Please stop and discuss which specific edits of mine you have issues with. JCDenton2052 (talk) 21:49, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I notice that you still haven't addressed the issues I've raised above JC, or the issues raised by the other editors, yet you continue to revert to your version. That's not following BRD. I'll wait a bit, but will continue to revert until you address the issues of your misrepresenting refs (often by stating they are saying the opposite of what they actually claim), creating huge OR problems, and fluffing up the section with commentary that has nothing to do with the Great Depression whatsoever. NJGW (talk) 00:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Please point out actual, individual issues that you feel I haven't addressed, rather than making false claims and blanking my additions. JCDenton2052 (talk) 00:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll start. You claim that "inflation-adjusted U.S. housing prices in March 2009 were higher than any time since 1890 (including the housing booms of the 1970s and 80s)" and you use this article as your reference. I couldn't find anything in that article to back up your claim. JCDenton2052 (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
That should read "higher than anytime from 1890 to 2000", and it's based on the statement "But they [housing prices] are still higher than the booms of the 1970s and 1980s," which is sitting next to a graphical representation of the same information in case you have a hard time figuring out what the sentence means. I've fixed it and removed the tags you added. Like I said, the issues are with your additions, and they are too numerous to list each one here, but here are just a few examples to see if you have any explanations for your strange interpretations:
Even if Bajaj is correct on this point (which is in doubt because he falsely claimed that the S&P 500 fell more in 1982 than during the current crisis), that doesn't negate the fact that housing prices have fallen at least as far as they did in the Great Depression and many analysts believe they will fall even further. JCDenton2052 (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Can you quote the place the sentence that holds that claim? I'm not sure it exists. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
"The 2008-9 bear market is one of the worst in history. But it hasn't fallen as far as the market bottoms of 1932 and 1982." [17] You need to work on your reading comprehension. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Econ 101 (or maybe .00001): housing market does not equal stock market. Thanks for playing, come again. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • [18] - You claimed explicitly that Dow says something he did not.
I wrote "Market strategist Phil Dow notes that that the fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a "mirror image" of its fall at the beginning of the Great Depression." Kawamoto wrote "The rate of decline is mimicking that of the Dow during the Great Depression." Dow wrote "It's very troubling if you have a mirror image." JCDenton2052 (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
You did write that about Dow. Unfortunately Dow never said that. That's called not being truthful. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes he did. [19] You are the one who is being untruthful here. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
"It's very troubling if you have a mirror image," said Phil Dow. Please avoid wp:SYN, as you have no clue what else Dow told that reporter (he could have easily finished with "... so let's hope that doesn't happen."). As the other sources show, it's not a mirror image, so I'm going to assume an expert like Dow knows better than to make the same mistake you're making. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • [20] - You claimed that the ref said something, but it said the opposite
I wrote "Some economists argue that this means they may drop further." Folk wrote "The market may be undervalued right now but could get even cheaper based on historical precedents." and "Still, markets were even more badly bombed out in bear markets in the United States in the '70s and '80s on a forward P/E basis and another 25% fall could be in store based on these worstcase scenarios." Stirton writes "Until housing and bank sectors are fixed, markets could keep falling, as they have in Japan, for decades." Browder writes "Although one might be attracted by the 59% decline in the MSCI World Index in the last 16 months, its trailing P/E ratio of 10.7 times earnings is not yet particularly cheap in the context of a global crisis. In 1920, the S&P bottomed at 5x trailing earnings, in 1932 at 5.5 times and in 1982 it hit 7.2 times. In other words, there is little evidence to suggest the markets have found a bottom at these levels." JCDenton2052 (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Levi Folk is not an economist, so that's a big attribution problem. Stirton is also not an economist (though he does have a nice background in other academic areas, economics is not one of his degrees); further, Stirton states explicitly that "it is critically important, though, to recognize that different analysts have different earnings expectations," meaning that it is a meaningless issue to debate. Your Bowder quote is completely out of context as the very next sentence gives perspective which basically negates his opinion. Also, he too is not an economist. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
It is ludicrous to suggest that because there are multiple views on a subject Wikipedia should not cover the subject at all. Furthermore, I did not take anything out of context. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Yo! <waving hands from great distance> goal posts are over here. You called them economists and they're not. If you want to quickly change the subject each time I call you out for being wrong, I'm going to start calling you a troll. And as for multiple views, you still need to bone up on wp:WEIGHT, and then reread the actual views of the people you're misrepresenting. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • [21] - You completely mis-characterized this ref's claim (even using the term "argued that" when the ref even says that he "argues that" something totally contrary to what you assert in your reading)
I wrote that "John Williams argues that unemployment would be 19.1% if calculated the same way it was during the Great Depression." According to Reuters, Williams claims that "The U.S. unemployment rate would be 19.1 percent, close to the level during the Great Depression, using the methodology that prevailed 80 years ago."
Why in the world would you totally ignore the statement that he "argues that measurement changes implemented over the years make it impossible to compare the current unemployment rate with that seen during the Great Depression"? It negates the whole point of your argument. You are either not reading the refs or being deceptive. I'd like to believe the first one, but you make that very difficult to do. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not the one making the argument, Williams is. He was referring to the current U3 employment rate. Since (in his opinion) it is impossible to compare with the rates from the Great Depression, he has developed his own measurement which he believes is more similar to the measurements from the Great Depression. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
He believes his measurement is more accurate than the one we're using, but his main point is that it's "impossible to compare the current unemployment rate with that seen during the Great Depression." If it will help you understand it, I can come over and read the source to you. I would go really slowly when I got to the part that said, "Still, he noted that the Depression peak itself may have been underestimated", because that's where your wp:SYN and total mischaracterization pops up. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • [22] - You just insert lots of stats already present in the article, but not related to a Great Depression comparison
I added unemployment statistics for other countries. The Great Depression was a global one, so this section need to look beyond just the US otherwise someone may tag it with this. I added quotes from non-US politicians for the same reason. JCDenton2052 (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
That's called SYN. Would you like a link to that policy? I think you've already been given the link enough times that there's really no point for me to do so. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Your assertion that a Depression is not a global phenomenon is WP:PN. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
You assertion that I asserted that "a Depression is not a global phenomenon" is... based on what exactly?????? NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Do you have any way of explaining how these are useful edits? NJGW (talk) 07:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, still no explanation? Just repeating what we already know you did as if it's OK? That sucks; I guess it means you don't understand what's wrong with your edits. If that's the case, maybe you shouldn't be editing. NJGW (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I've already offered valid explanations. You have simply lied, personally attacked me, acted in bad faith, and assumed ownership of the article. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I guess all your other ANI threads and talk page postings where everyone tells you you don't understand policy aren't sinking in. That sucks. I guess you could start another one if you really want. Have fun. Let us know how it goes. NJGW (talk) 19:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23847793/
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