The quote isn't supposed to define financial crisis.
It sure looks like it's trying to.
It's claiming that a financial crisis isn't called a crisis if the people who lose money are unpopular.
Unpopular? That's an even worse way to try to define a financial crisis.
When someone says "Something is called an X when it has properties P, Q, and R", they need not be endorsing the definition. They might simply be saying (with more or less cynical exaggeration) "This is how the term gets used in practice". Like when someone says that a language is a dialect with an army, or that a freedom fighter is a terrorist the speaker approves of.
I paraphrase Mike Levine's comment, in its context, thus: "If you look at how politicians and newspapers and the like use the term 'financial crisis', you will find th...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: