Last night's All Things Considered on NPR had a story on various attempts to give the current economic crisis a proper name. One oft-forgotten tidbit was the fact that World War I used to be called "The Great War" -- until World War II came along.
So there was a period of time in which "The Great War" was followed by "The Great Depression."
Now that we've renamed "The Great War" and added a second Roman-numeral II version, why not do the same to depressions? After all, the term "depression" was invented by Herbert Hoover himself, in order to avoid the too-scary sound of "Panic", which was the previous term-of-art for economic contractions. So here's my suggestion.
The Hoover depression starting in 1929 will be "Depression I". The current Bush depression starting in 2008 will be "Depression II". This neatly dovetails with the naming of World Wars.
And it also allows future generations of Republican presidents to create their very own depressions ad infinitum, until the people finally stop electing them and a new party arises in its place.
How do we tell a Depression from a recession? Two easy rules which any real Roman-numeral Depression must meet.
First, it's gotta be global. That means North America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America, all at the same time. (And Africa too, when at some future time their economies become large enough).
Second, it's gotta be major, which means deflationary.
Simple enough. From now on, we're in Depression II.