Snowinian Depression

The Snowinian Depression was an economic crisis that happened in Snowiny in the months after their loss of Snowinian Ed Island and the Ed-Snowinn War. It started in November 2013 and lasted until March 2014, just in time for the Puffalian-Western War.

Background
During the Ed-Snowinn War, Snowiny heavily invested in the war effort and Snowinian Ed Island, which would have been Snowiny's strongest territory had they won the war. This ended up proving futile, as Snowiny lost the war and signed a treaty towards the end of November. Losing the war hurt Snowinn morale and also affected the economy. Unemployment started rising across the nation, and Snowinian salt mines were in full operation in an effort to earn back the money that Snowiny had lost.

In December 2013, the song "The Eggnog Starts Now!" was released on disk in Snowiny and quickly became popular. To be a generous King, and to raise morale among his citizens, Robert Smith attempted to order one million copies of the song online to give away for Christmas. However, he ended up accidentally ordering 11 trillion copies due to a typo, which produced a bill to the government of 55 trillion Varoes, or around 66 trillion coins/41.25 trillion WikiBuck$. Once this news spread, the Depression and Snowiny's economy got much worse. Snowinian companies' stock plummeted on the YOWSER index overnight, and unemployment skyrocketed across the country as employers, fearing the worst, fired much of the workforce in an attempt to save as much money as possible.

Subsequent hostilities, such as the January Reprisals, further hurt Snowiny's economy, unemployment remained extremely high, and Snowinian companies remained at an all-time low on the YOWSER stock market. Smaller businesses began being sold to or bought out by foreigners such as Margatians, Antarcticans and Shoppers, while others held onto the hope of a promised bailout by the Snowinian government.

In early March 2014, President Lavender of Shops Island used the leverage he had against Snowiny from the massive debt to "negotiate" a treaty. The treaty gave Shops Island the Snowinian territories of the Marmeling Islands and Snowinian Melodeeves, and in exchange slashed a large portion of their debt. However, the debt remained in the trillions, which Lavender kept in mind in case he wished to exploit the Snowinians any more to reduce it further. Chill Island Productions agreed to make "The Eggnog Starts Now!" available for digital download in Snowiny, for free forever. The treaty declared that Snowiny had to pay 100 million Varoes to CIP within the next three years, the cost of 20 million disks, which was the estimated population of the Snowinian mainland at the time. They also agreed to pay a minimum of 24 million Varoes each year to CIP after the first three years.

With the "eggnog blunder" settled, and the country at peace for the time being, the Snowinian Depression slowed to a halt. It was declared over in the middle of the month, after the government began formulating company bailouts for businesses such as the influential Agrocorp, and Snowinian business stock prices slowly began to rise again on the YOWSER index.

Trivia

 * This event, and many of the surrounding events such as the Eggnog blunder and the failed Ed-Snowinn War contributed to the peaceful rebellion against Robert Smith and the monarchy in mid-2015, which reformed Snowiny into the democratic United Provinces.