“Fiscal” Crisis

This is a little pedantic, but I really do wish John McCain would stop referring to the current financial crisis as a “fiscal crisis.” They’re similar words, but different things. A financial crisis is a crisis in the financial system. A fiscal crisis would be a crisis in the federal budget — like if the deficit got so big that it caused a crisis. The terminological mixup is not, on its own terms, a big deal. But it seems like the kind of thing someone who’d been studying the problem wouldn’t do.