What the heck are these green shoots anyway?
Are you as sick of reading about "green shoots" as I am? For months now, it seems the phrase is included in virtually every financial commentary. But it was what I learned about the ultimate source of the phrase that really got me angry.
The whole thing started with the identification of any news that wasn't disastrous as a "green shoot." Then when things weren't necessarily going green, it morphed into "green shoots turning brown." I don't know which is worse.
Of course, now we're back to brighter scenarios (stock market climbing, GDP down less than expected). I suppose it'll be 'green shoots take root', or something like that.
Anyway, here's what got me really angry. It turns out the phrase was created by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Imagine the head of our central bank making up cutesy phrases and basically talking nonsense? Isn't that annoying, even embarrassing?
Do Bernanke and cohorts thing we're little children who need reassuring? Maybe he's not the professorial type after all. This sort of manipulative talk sounds more like...well, not quite the used car salesman type, but the crafty type who can smooth-talk you into buying the Brooklyn Bridge - an ultimately more dangerous type of character.
In either case, who needs it? What's wrong with telling us what's really going on? C'mon we can take it, right boys and girls?
Besides, what happens if, after talking things up, things really don't go well after all?
We had Greenspan for 18 years and no one really had any idea what he was talking about. (Remember all those ponderous sentences that, so many of which added up to very little?) For a while, I thought Bernanke would be a relief after the Greenspan double-talk. But these green shoots have me wondering...
The whole thing started with the identification of any news that wasn't disastrous as a "green shoot." Then when things weren't necessarily going green, it morphed into "green shoots turning brown." I don't know which is worse.
Of course, now we're back to brighter scenarios (stock market climbing, GDP down less than expected). I suppose it'll be 'green shoots take root', or something like that.
Anyway, here's what got me really angry. It turns out the phrase was created by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Imagine the head of our central bank making up cutesy phrases and basically talking nonsense? Isn't that annoying, even embarrassing?
Do Bernanke and cohorts thing we're little children who need reassuring? Maybe he's not the professorial type after all. This sort of manipulative talk sounds more like...well, not quite the used car salesman type, but the crafty type who can smooth-talk you into buying the Brooklyn Bridge - an ultimately more dangerous type of character.
In either case, who needs it? What's wrong with telling us what's really going on? C'mon we can take it, right boys and girls?
Besides, what happens if, after talking things up, things really don't go well after all?
We had Greenspan for 18 years and no one really had any idea what he was talking about. (Remember all those ponderous sentences that, so many of which added up to very little?) For a while, I thought Bernanke would be a relief after the Greenspan double-talk. But these green shoots have me wondering...
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