The phrase represents a selected intersection of occasions, media, and leisure exercise. It refers back to the puzzles revealed by The New York Occasions that include clues and solutions referencing monetary information associated to the financial occasions of a selected 12 months, 2008, and the U.S. monetary district. For instance, a clue in such a crossword is likely to be “Mortgage-backed safety woe” with the reply being “CDO.”
These crosswords function a historic marker, encapsulating the zeitgeist of a interval outlined by important financial turmoil. They provide a glimpse into how the information cycle and public discourse had been formed by occasions on Wall Avenue. They supply an attention-grabbing, and generally difficult, technique to mirror upon advanced monetary ideas that dominated headlines. The crosswords additionally implicitly mirror the cultural consciousness of those occasions, because the clues assume a sure stage of economic literacy from the solver.