I agree with you about Greenspan, Mq. He's extremely intelligent and very articulate.
For many people who try to "get" what Greenspan is saying, the problem is that they don't have the background and they are used to being spoon-fed information by happy-talking TV announcers. He used big words, and long sentences, with clarifying clauses, and he speaks very cautiously.
He's very wary of saying things outright because he knows that all over the world, his testimony is being parsed anxiously by the people really in control of the US economy and the global economy, too, people like you and me, bankers, brokers, traders, financial analysts, politicians.
He speaks in code, yes, Greenspeech is a good way of putting it, but it's perfectly comprehensible to me. I am used to listening for the hidden meaning in what people say when they speak formally and cautiously. It's very unusual for a lawyer or a judge or a witness to be down to earth and forthright in court - they're always sort of hiding the ball. Greenspan speaks judiciously, guarding every word.
He's also frequently somewhat bored when he answers politicians' questions because they don't "get" what he said, they're used to talking to other politicians who all use a different kind of code to signal what they mean, and they keep asking the same question over and over again, trying to get an answer they like better. Many times, when what he is saying doesn't seem to be answering the question, it's not. He's gotten tired of playing and sort of wanders off on a tangent to throw the questioner off. |
