Political-Speak
So when is a recession not really a recession? Apparently, according to Federal treasurer Wayne Swan, when it’s “a period of negative growth”. How very comforting. A period of contracting economic adjustment is far nicer than the “R” word, or even - to borrow the Prime Minister’s own words - “a shitstorm”, for that matter.
Recession, you see, brings with it the prospect of downsizing, destaffing and strategic headcount reductions. Or, as Kevin Rudd put it in Federal Parliament last month: “We’re in the midst of a jobs consequence flowing from the global financial crisis.”
A jobs consequence? I think the formal definition is actually “to sack a lot of people”. And in troubled banking giant Citicorp’s case, some employees are to be placed in “career transition mode”.
Politicians’ seemingly pathological fear of plain speaking is not just an Australian disease. Consider this beauty from British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who was being grilled about the need for future tax increases to pay for the government trying to spend it’s way out of the economic mire: “I’ve already said that if you take action now to expand borrowing, then you know you have to make a structural adjustment later on.” God forbid the bloke just reply with a “Yes”.
The global financial crisis has brought with it a plague of euphemisms and truly incomprehensible jargon. The United States is using “quantative easing” as part of it’s drive to “deleverage” the financial system. In other words, they are printing money to wipe out bad debts.
Mind you, America is a place so embarrassed about bodily functions that waitresses will look aghast if you ask where the dunny is. You use a bathroom rather than go to a toilet. This beggars the reply, “But I want to use the toilet, not piss in the bath.”
Although politicians such as Pauline Hanson and Peter Beattie are often dismissed by the latte set, they enjoyed support from many quarters because they call a spade a bloody spade in plain English.
Sadly, in public life today, language is often used to disguise meaning and reality, rather than to impart it.
It’s a bloody shame. And yes, we are in a recession.
