Recession? Decession? Repression? Depression?

People continue to debate what to call the current economic malaise. Most politicians are loath to think of this as a depression; it’s bad karma for incumbents who want to stay in office. Yet we all admit we’re living through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Is it really just a plain old recession? It doesn’t seem to aptly describe the situation we’re living through. I think we should have some in-between characterizations to distinguish this historical time from a recession and still hold it apart from the Great One.

We could call it a repression or a decession. I like decession. It has just enough of both and reminds us of the big D without upstaging it. I don’t like repression. While I do feel repressed by not having an impact on things like health care reform, civil rights, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq- from an economic perspective it feels almost as bad as depression- maybe worse. Is it worse to be repressed or depressed? I suppose a state of depression could come from repression. So could rebellion. That’s what happened in 1776. I don’t think we’re ready for rebellion, not yet anyway.

Events are always catalysts for new words- like Watergate, brinkmanship, payola, etc. So if decession ever makes it into the dictionary I want the credit. It would be cool to have created a new word that people use. If anybody asks you what you think of the economy today, just say it’s the worst decession in our nation’s history and see how they react. Besides, it’s much easier to say than “post traumatic Bush syndrome”.