Jill Schlesinger

The Financial Decoder

The Fed: Kicking the Economy’s Steroid Habit

By Jill Schlesinger | Nov 4, 2009 |

We knew that the Fed wouldn’t change interest rate policy, but as my favorite teacher Mr. Maloney used to say, “words matter!” The Fed surely gets mired in word-smithing, but as the economy comes to a critical juncture, can’t the central bankers speak in plain English?

Just tell us something like this: “the outlook has improved, but we’re concerned that the fragile player still needs an injection of steroids to play in the big game.” Sorry if you don’t like baseball metaphors, but we’re in the midst of the Fall Classic, so why not?

Maybe then, the Fed could tell us that the player was a high-performing athlete before we juiced him and he’ll eventually get back to his top form, but in order to get there, we need to wean him off the stuff over time. When will our player be able to go it alone? My best guess is that we can expect to see the real deal on opening day of 2010…that is, Monday April 5th.

Image by Flickr User Muffet, CC 2.0

 
Reply to Story

MoneyWatch TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

  •  
    1

    rhapsodyartist

    11/04/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Fed: Kicking the Economy's Steroid Habit

    What would you rather have the Fed say?

    "Umm... we're not as effed as we were before, so we need to keep giving people free money until the rest of you start spending money?"

  •  
    2

    Jill Schlesinger

    11/06/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Fed: Kicking the Economy's Steroid Habit

    rhapsodyartist: That would have been AWESOME...but Bernanke doesn't seem like the kind of guy to drop f-bombs...

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here

Jill Schlesinger

Jill Schlesinger is the Editor-at-Large for CBS MoneyWatch.com. Prior to the launch of MoneyWatch, she was the Chief Investment Officer for an independent investment advisory firm. In her infancy, she was an options trader on the Commodities Exchange of New York.

Jill Schlesinger

Click Here
track your portfolio