Munching the credit crunch media

Just over a year ago the term 'credit crunch' was widely outside common use. Though we might wish otherwise, now it dominates. With my (quite tatty) economist hat on I actually prefer the term 'credit reversion', as history will show I think, this period as a ending of loose credit times, and its associated pain.

However, who came up with the term 'credit crunch'. Was it a New York or London banker, who last July saw the wall of investment money vanish overnight? The truth is difficult to pin down, but suffice to say it was in relatively common media use back as long ago as 1969 when the New York Times ran the headline "Fed Reserve study of impact of 66 'credit crunch' on borrowing and spending".

To those who thought that globalisation had bought a new paradigm of ever increasing values, forget the lessons of the past. In my review of media coverage on the term credit crunch (using Factiva) it is clear that during the last year its use has massively increased. Over the previous year its use in the media has increased by 6200% illustrating the markets (and the media's) ignorance to the dangers.