{"id":1556,"date":"2009-07-07T18:01:56","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T02:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2009-07-07T18:09:54","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T02:09:54","slug":"brown-and-sarkozys-dangerous-weasel-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/brown-and-sarkozys-dangerous-weasel-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown and Sarkozy’s dangerous weasel words"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a WSJ editorial<\/a>, Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy go after people who make significant bets on the future of oil prices.\u00a0 I know that definition applies equally well to oil companies, airlines, bulk shippers, commodity traders, etc., but the dynamic duo are choosing to apply that label only to “speculators” (i.e., those evil traders\/hedge funds).<\/p>\n

And what is their complaint?<\/p>\n

“For two years the price of oil has been dangerously volatile, seemingly defying the accepted rules of economics.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

“Those who rely on oil and have no substitutes readily available have been the victims of extreme price fluctuations beyond their control — and apparently beyond reason.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we get rid of the adjectives, redundancies, and weasel words, we get:<\/p>\n

“For two years the price of oil has been dangerously<\/span> volatile, seemingly <\/em>defying the <\/span>accepted rules of <\/span> economics<\/span> as often happens in uncertain economies<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

“Those who rely on oil and have no substitutes readily available<\/span> have been the victims of<\/span> experienced<\/em> extreme<\/span> price fluctuations beyond their control — and apparently beyond reason<\/span>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The difference is that absent the adjectives, redundancies, and weasel words like “seemingly” and “apparently,” the clarion loses its force.<\/p>\n

The combination of selective labeling of one group of traders as “speculators” based solely on the type of firm that employs them, and using language to blame natural occurences on conspiracies is typical of the cargo cults from which civilization evolved.\u00a0 Such misuse of language should not be acceptable in civilized societies, except that our comfort has far outstripped our collective ability to understand its true source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a WSJ editorial, Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy go after people who make significant bets on the future of oil prices.\u00a0 I know that definition applies equally well to oil companies, airlines, bulk shippers, commodity traders, etc., but the dynamic duo are choosing to apply that label only to “speculators” (i.e., those evil traders\/hedge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectivist-instinct","tag-eurosclerosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}