I do believe we’ve come up with the most perfect label for last month’s financial meltdown: “Red October”.

It works on so many levels:

- “Red” is for both the massive ledger losses, and the socialistic fiscal intervention taken to stem the damage.

- Similarly, Russia’s October 1917 Bolshevik Revoltion is often referred to as “Red October”, so there’s an historical antecedent to the phrase.

- Labeling the entire month of October 2008 reflects the multi-day timeframe in which the disaster took place, thus avoiding a direct parallel with 1929’s Black Thursday (although even that single-day mark is not wholly accurate).

The wordplay is set. I only wish I’d come up with it myself.