After more than a week of failed efforts to resolve our current financial crisis it’s finally occurring to folks that the words used to describe it matter.
Senator McCain is saying it should be called a “rescue” rather than a “bailout” and 538 had a post on the importance of the language of effort. Fellow GW professor Frank Sesno, sitting in for Diane Rehm on NPR, tried to raise the issue of the language today – but the effort was unfortunately ignored by his guests.
Words tell us what the debates are about, who the good guys and bad guys are, what it has to do with the rest of us, and what should be done about it. Unfortunately none of the words used to describe this mess have been very useful.
We have been told this is a “bailout of Wall Street” or a plan to “rescue banks.” Wall Street is full of fat cats and bankers all keep “banker’s hours.” Who wants to help them? We’ve been told that if we don’t hand $700 billion to people who probably make that in a year anyway, it will be beyond bad. It will be catastrophic; we’ll look misty-eyed back on the halcyon days of the Great Depression.
Not so helpful.
The problem, as described, is too big to be real. We have no way of wrapping our brains around it. This morning most Americans went to work, bought groceries, and put (slightly less expensive) gas in their cars. So where’s the end of the world? The market went way down, a lot of rich people lost some of their money, and then the market came back up – so what’s the problem?
A better approach would have been to talk about the real problem: there isn’t a lot of money to borrow, and not a lot of people lending what little is left. If your company just lost money, and can’t borrow to make up the gap, your paycheck will bounce. If your car dies, you won’t be able to borrow money for a new one. If you need to refinance your home, or if you need a home line of credit to pay the bills, you’re out of luck. Your parents lost their savings and their company’s retirement plan just went broke – now they have to move in with you. These are real, tangible, and coincidentally accurate, possible outcomes of this mess.
A better description of the consequences feeds a better description of the solution. We aren’t bailing out Wall Street or rescuing Wamu. We are protecting jobs from corporate greed-heads. We are securing pensions and retirement funds so you don’t have work until you’re 90. We are keeping your nest egg safe, helping fulfill your promise to send your kids to the best colleges they get into, working to make sure you can keep your home – and making sure your parents don’t move into your basement.
Shouting “we’re doomed” doesn’t help. Explaining “we’re needed” does.
