pixabay house
The U.S. Financial Crisis Commission determined the causes of The Great Recession of 2007 and afterward were as follows:
The U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that “the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.”
Money thugs everywhere like cats breathlessly pouncing on a field full of mice. No regulation, no one watching or understanding what was going on or turning a blind eye, while the wolves salivated and prospered. The huge money grab ended in 2008 officially with the real estate market plummeting and foreclosures skyrocketing.
My 45 year old house was worth over a million dollars in 2006 and by 2008, was worth closer to $450,000.00. Nothing made sense in the seething overground of financial shenanigans and thievery. But at home, there was just us: the kids and me. Frank worked.
In the gaze of the other 
There was no “Great Recession”. It was another Great Depression. First, you don’t have that many reasons for it being called a ‘recession’ without it actually being a Depression.
Second, many people simply gave up and stopped looking for work so they were never counted by the Government in statistics that determine whether it was a ‘recession’ or a ‘depression’.
Who’s Frank?
By all accounts I’ve ever read, it is officially called The Great Recession. Unemployment and GDP was much worse in the Great Depression. But even descriptively, it has been called The Great Recession, the time after 2008.
I am writing a fictional novel for nanowrimo, which is National Novel Writing Month. It is set during the Great Recession. Frank is one of the fictional characters.