"Pulling Out All The Stops"

Journos, observers, commentators, bloggers, traders, analysts, strategies, newscasters, reporters, and so it seems just about everyone else has a view on QE. And the result is overwhelmingly INTENSE. They've PULLED OUT ALL THE STOPS!!!!. No, not the ECB. I mean, anyone writing about the ECB's announced policy actions.

Below is an exhaustive (hyperbole?)list of the terms and associated language casually garnered from almost all the QE headlines and articles over the past few days. One could of course forgive any single instance of excitement, but in surveying the landscape, it's clear something's in the water. Especially in the United Kingdom (the nation with the highest and most pernicious sustained primary deficit, and a grand-canyon-sized CA gap - NB: intentionally exaggerated language) which is the source of most hyper-ventilative language (yes you guessed the Telegraph & Ambrose E.P. wins again). Even the usually-dry FT leapt on the bandwagon (sorry - OTT metaphoring is infectious), and sober BBC "joined the party" (drats!I did it again). Just have a look....

unleashes
triggers
pushes-the-button on
massive
massive
boost
huge
massive
injects
launches
pump
pull-trigger
bang
financial bazooka
d-day
salvo
unfettered
full-fledged
shock & awe
full-scale
massive
scheme
finally
long-awaited
fatally
exhausted
deflation
rescue
revive
save
struggling
back-door
plummeting
deep-division
severe reservations
wary
slide
teetering
brink
downward-spiral
reluctance
damage
faulty
disappoint
fatally-weaken
unimpressed
questions
flawed
lambast
stagnation
underwhelmed
wrong type
tensions simmer
inevitably fail
deservedly fail
last throw of the dice
too-small-too-late
won't save
will not solve
unclear
diminished
uncertainty
dangerously-close
save-from-ruin


Poor Draghi must feel like he's been gang-raped. OK, so it's "momentous", unprecedented" blah blah blah. Really? Euro 1 trillion (including existing programs) over the course of a year across an economy sporting GDP > EUR14 Trillion; Net Assets> (I've no clue but'll stake a stab...EUR 70 Trillion??)....hardly worth losing one's integrity over, considering all the program's practical limitations. As it happens, the Irish, and foreign obserservers writing in ENglish (India, Japan) were the most measured and least hyperbolic, using neutral language and refraining from the gratuitous ummm errr gratuitousness with words tethered to reality like.

start
begin
announced
revive
stimulate
program


Yes, the latter list is short...

A Recursive Crisis of Faith in My Chosen Lack of Faith

Idiocy.
Hypocrisy.
Uncountable belief paradoxes, logical flaws and non-sequitirs.
Demagoguery.
Magical thinking.
Legitimacy of dubious Profits.

One would be forgiven if one's first thoughts turned to the financial industry. Rather, as a sympathetic [amateur] satirist, I am of course referring to religion.

Such is my dismay at the actions of people claiming to speak, and act in the name of God - emphasising that this net is cast wider than Charlie Hedbo's assasins - I am beginning to seriously question my own faith in my chosen lack of faith - The Church of the Apathetic Agnostic. CAA's basic creed is simple: there is little point to arguing about something that neither can be proved nor disproved, though, even if a Supreme Being exists, he/she/it displays little concern for the affairs of humanity, so it's only sensible to requite with similar apathy. However, when the faithful project their inner beliefs outwardly, in a manifestly violent manner, I begin to wonder whether we need to respond with more serious weapons. Dawkins? Perhaps. But hardly as potent as...