SecTreas: “The big risk we face now is that banks are going to overcorrect and not take enough risk.”
Is this risk of no risk a poorly formulated sentence, a new form of double negative, or a pithy diagnosis of the present state of the economy?
I lean towards ruling that Geitner's "big risk" meant to say "big problem", since "big risk" implies that we are going all in on long odds for big payout. But I do not see any potential jackpot from our muddling so-called crapshoot.
Nov 1, 2009
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3 sucka ass fools had something to say:
I don't know what you're talking about. It seems like you can be willfully dense about this statement or choose to understand that "big risk" and "risky" are used to mean different things. This is like Rumsfield's "known unknowns" but simpler - you can quickly move past the superficial linguistic ridiculousness and realize whats being said is pretty straightforward, if not obvious.
The "big risk" statement doesn't imply the government is trying to take one. Acknowledging a risk and trying to avoid it is the opposite of that.
A fan of rap should be encouraging these kind of linguistic stimulus. Then again, if even he's confused by it...
What word or phrase would you substitute for "big risk" in Timothy's statement?
I disagree with your negation of implication. The government implictly accepts taking a "big risk" (that banks won't lend) by not intervening more or revising banks' incentive structures. So if his linguistic choice was misguided, in my book, its a revelatory slip of the tongue.
I don't like the use of "big risk" because it makes it seem like nobody is quite sure how Big Capital will act in this given environment. Like banks are a weather pattern. When in actuality the profit motive makes financial institutions more predictable than a chance of showers.
I wouldn't change the wording. They're not saying "we took a big risk", they're saying "we're facing a big risk". Rumsfield just admitting he doesn't know LOL. Revelatory?
Investors are more like weather patterns. Stock market, eh? You can assume overly conservative investing was an obvious consequence of the government policy but clearly its an unintended consequence. But thats beside the point.
The risk part does insinuate uncertainty but not in the way you orignally said (hunting for a jackpot). They still aren't sure if thats the case, maybe investors are being too safe, maybe not. If anything has been learned over the last few years its that assessing risk is anything but obvious. Perhaps the banks are right to be cautious or perhaps they're caution is a tragic unintended consequence that will smother growth.
Anyway... of course the government took a big risk. Same ol shit. Its sort of inherent to their job description to affect many people with cloudy economic policy.
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