[lbo-talk] Staunch the rhetorical bleeding

[C. G. Estabrook]

A remarkable characteristic of financial discussion, perhaps particularly in the 
last weeks, is the use of metaphor. What's to be done? "Staunch the bleeding!" 
What's needed? "A credit thaw!"   What's to be stopped? "Golden parachutes!" 
(That one had a hint of poetry, before it became cliche.)  What shall we do? 
"Lamborghinize the banking system!" (OK, I made that one up.)

The crisis (literally, a separation) seems to consist of the refusal of those 
who own or control money to lend it (it's useless to point out that "loan" is 
not a verb) unless they're paid more.  They surely have the money: e.g., the WSJ 
pointed out the other day that "Exxon has $39 billion in cash and has been 
buying back shares at an $8 billion-a-quarter clip; the value of the stock it 
has repurchased is about $218 billion, a shade less than the current value of 
General Electric Co."

The result seems to be a prudery worthy of a Victorian novelist, an 
unwillingness to call things by their right names.  And I wonder if the causes 
are similar?  Victorian sexual euphemism seems to have been prompted by a bad 
conscience over established sexual exploitation (of women, children and the 
poor).  Is metaphor now protecting established financial exploitation?  The 
situations seem equally disgusting. (But I suppose your retch should exceed your 
gasp, or what's a metaphor?)  --CGE