Federal Reserve's mid-year testimony was a lesson in the art of breaking the bad news
Doctors routinely have to break very bad news to patients and their relatives. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of the technique deployed in these situations will have found something disturbingly familiar about the tone and content of the mid-year testimony by Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, last week. Messengers bringing unwelcome information have always faced the wrath or grief of those who receive it. Their reactions are likely to be extreme and dangerous; this is rarely the moment for cold clarity. Disastrous news is best delivered through a muddle of grad...
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