Report Questions Sustainability Of Pessimistic Economists In Stabilizing Economy
A new report says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's recent statement that the economy is on the brink of recovery could spell trouble for economists and National Public Radio anchors who have gotten used to portraying the nation's financial system as exploding.
The recovery could produce a lexical shift not seen since "we all stopped not forgetting" sometime in 2002, says the report's author, James Jameel.
"For nearly a year now, pundits and analysts have become so accustomed to using such phrases as 'the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression' or 'the current stagnant economy' that we believe they may no longer be capable of describing the economy as 'robust' or 'vibrant'," Jameel explained. "This recovering economy is going to hit a lot of industries hard."
According to the report, "the difficulty of business writers and economists everywhere to overcome endless months of negative and dour verbiage to describe the market could delay economic recovery by two to three quarters." Amongst other questions were doubts as to whether or not businesses and consumers could begin finishing every other sentence with the phrase, "but in this economy, who knows?"
"It could be too late for full or even partial recovery, let alone a return to a time when everyone you saw would say, 'Some economy today, isn't it?'" said Barbara Holister of the Economic Research Institute. "Even if the markets make a full recovery, we expect to see some kind of residual effect of the recession that will haunt us for a long time; no one should expect that the nation will overnight be able to blame their slowdown in business, lack of employment or inability to get laid on something besides the economy."
The report by Clearview also questions whether or not National Public Radio anchors will disrupt the eventual economic upswing by misreading their notes after months of disparaging economic news.
"And in other news today, the DOW dropped -- shit -- I mean rose a hundred points to its lowest -- fuck! -- HIGHEST level since early September of 2008," said Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal in last Thursday's broadcast. "All right, just what the hell is this, a joke? Can someone please get me the most current papers? God damn it, Ursula!"
Despite an abundance of disbelief amongst academics and professional economists at the guardedly optimistic tone of the Federal Reserve and other authorities, many in the private sector -- namely, bankers -- have been expressing extreme optimism for some time now. They remain hopeful that the early signs of recovery will turn into a groundswell of confidence, overcoming the cynical mood of reporters and researchers who actually know better.
"How people can still be so doubting about the economy when there are signs of recovery all around us?" wondered LA resident Eva St. Thomas. "Just look at my husband, Tim. If the economy were still as bad as people say it is, then how was he able to get a job at Play it Again Sports after being unemployed for only four months? Sure, his former career as an architect was much more lucrative for the family, PIAG -- as we call it at home -- must be doing pretty well to be able to hire him as a bike repair man, which must be an indicator of people continuing to spend discretionary income."
"I feel good," she said with a smile, "and so does Tim, who gets to work with bikes for a living, which has always been kind of a dream for him, since he once rode a bike as a child."
Many linguists, however, fear that the death of the depressive, gloomy and negative tone of language that Americans have been speaking for the past 12 months would be a bad thing, and that it should be preserved in some capacity for posterity's sake, at least.
"It would be a shame to see such a highly-developed and perfected lexicon just fade away, as have so many verbal and linguistic nuances in our country's history," said linguist Alfred DuLingi of the University of California Dept. of Linguistics. "It would not be unheard of were certain words to suddenly reverse meaning and remain a part of the national idiom -- just as 'bad' now means 'good', it would do us well to preserve the phrase 'uncontrollable downward economic spiral' and turn it to mean 'complete recovery of the capitalist system'."
DuLingi says that phraseologies such as "hopeless monetary outlook" and "it's over, bitches", as made popular by former-President George W. Bush, have become "so meaningful and unique to our culture that replacing them with colloquialisms such as 'positive economic factors' is a step in the wrong direction for this culture's lexicon."
