The “Great Recession” refers to the most significant global economic crisis since the Great Depression. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn from the fourth quarter of 2007 (Business Cycle Dating Committee 2008), but the Great Recession will probably be remembered as beginning with the liquidity crisis on Wall Street that culminated in the crash of October 2008. Although an international crisis resulting from the systemic contradictions of neoliberal globalization, the proximate causes of this recession were centered in the United States.