[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) wrote:
>We will hear many times over the next weeks and months from the likes of
>Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan the phrase, "the economic fundamentals are
>sound." We will also hear the media repeatedly use the metaphor, "financial
>meltdown." Paper is not plutonium.
I always laugh when I hear the phrase "the economy is fundamentally
sound". I don't know, I've been on this list a couple of years,
perhaps I've told this story here before; if so, sorry.
Political leaders are always constrained to say the economy is sound
regardless of its real state, because of the danger of causing
greater damage by scaring investors with the truth, investors being
seemingly more skittish than sheep. This leads to some absurd
situations, and a lot of them were occurring during the early
years of the Depression in '30-'31. At one point, Herbert Hoover
had just delivered a speech containing the cited phrase, when
the jaded public were treated to a heavyweight championship boxing
match. (I used to know who the participants were, but that was
a long time ago. The names Joe Louis and Gene Tunney hover in
my mind, but boxing history is not one of my strong points).
At any rate, the match was carried live on radio, and eventually
the match reached a conclusion. The radio commentator then described
the unfortunate loser, in direct and cynical reference to Hoover's
speech, as "fundamentally sound". He was out cold on the mat,
but fundamentally sound.
-Pete Vincent
