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I hate to be picky, but this seems like a rather bizarre term to include in this Washington Post piece on the G-8 meeting on Saturday. The full sentence is:

“Obama, who has pushed for additional fiscal stimulus in the United States, said the new agreement affirmed the course his administration pursued during the financial recession at home.”

It is difficult to see what is added by including the word “financial.” The point is that we are still suffering from the effects of the recession that officially began in December 2007. If the concern is that the recession officially ended in June of 2009 so that it is improper to refer to the current period as a “recession,” then the word “downturn” should do the trick.

It is hard to see what including “financial” in the description does except confuse people. We have a downturn in the real economy, not just a few problems in the financial sector.