If you are going to choose a day anytime soon to call into work sick and bury your head in the pillows, this Thursday might be a good choice. As noted earlier, it’s when the U.S. Supreme Court will announces its health care decision, which is not looking good. And before we in American experience that probable trauma, the European Union will have begun its 2012 Summit meeting, which is showing every sign of falling on the spectrum which runs from disappointment to global economic catastrophe.
Today world markets are in turmoil as the Germans continue to resist calls for emergency action to help Greece and Spain (even as their government’s own Finance Ministry predicts a euro collapse would contract the German economy by 10% and double unemployment), Moody’s prepares to downgrade Spanish banks, and the new Greek Finance Minister resigns (ostensibly for poor health) before he even takes office.
Maybe things will get better, but I want to get ahead of the game of coming up with a handy moniker for June 28 in case we wind up remembering it for many years as a day of infamy. “Black Thursday” is easy, of course, but overused and entirely non-alliterative. A quick spin through the dictionary suggests: Threnodic Thursday. In case you missed that day in school, “threnodic” is derived from “threnody,” meaning “lament.” That is in turn derived from the Greek word for “wailing song,” which is entirely appropriate.
If you’ve got a competing term for Thursday, feel free to share it in the comments.
