Salon reports that consumer confidence is up again. Which is nice, but the best part of this article are the ridiculous metaphors economists use to describe the news.
“The economy is clearly coming out of hibernation and beginning to move about,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo. “But it’s still pretty dark in the woods.”
WHAT? Another good one:
National Association of Manufacturers President Jerry Jasinowski said the figures were “like a ray of sunshine in an otherwise stormy sky.” He said that “while I don’t think the clouds are going to fade right away,” the numbers “show that the storm is beginning to moderate.”
I suppose if this is what it takes to make economics interesting, so be it.
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7 responses
sounds like something i’d write. the use of bad metaphors when doing writing for work is the only way to keep me sane and entertained.
I suppose that’s a rational explanation. I mean, how exciting can it be to have to talk about consumer confidence? I’d be making shit up too. “Well, you see, the economy is like this big monkey, and every now and then it scratches itself and flings some poo – i.e. economic sanctions – at the other world market monkeys…”
WARNING: random tangent ahead!
funny you should say that…J. has taken to calling me “monkey” (short for “monkey woman”) to the point that i’m now wishing that i bought monkeywoman.com instead of milkshaketime.com…
which reminds me i need to get the low-down on maintaining one’s very own webpage. i mean, what’s the story with needing an FTP thingy?
Ooh, you got a domain! Congrats.
An FTP thingy? You mean a host provider? Yeah, you need one of those. And then FTP is the way you transfer files to and from your space. Have you got a host yet? Let me plug mine, http://www.phpwebhosting.com . It’s $10/month and you get unlimited space and bandwidth. You also get a database and mySQL and CGI support (which means you can install my weblogging system, or Greymatter, or whatever). The support has been really good too. 🙂
i actually went with dreamhost for the whole package…but they aren’t very forthcoming on how i’m supposed to actually transmit files. i guess i have to buy a FTP program or client or…
??
No, you don’t need to buy one. Are you going to be on a Mac or PC? If you’re on the Mac, get Fetch. If you’re on the PC, get WSFTP. Fetch is free, and you can get the “LE” (limited edition) version of WSFTP if you claim that you’re a student. There are also lots of other free ones out there, but those are the ones I like best. (I’ve got links where to download those on this page down on step 3.)
thanks for the tip. i’m hoping to take a good look at this stuff when i have more time this weekend…it’s supposed to rain sunday…