Back when Jimmy Carter was president, his anti-inflation czar, Alfred Kahn, was chastised for his excessive frankness when he spoke about a possible recession. Therefore, he was strictly instructed by the White House not “to utter the ‘R-word’” in Congressional testimony he was about to give. When asked by Representatives whether the economy was in a recession, he replied faithfully that he could not say that, but that it was in his view in

"a banana." Bruce MacEwen