A failure of branding?
September 4, 2009Jon Brooks Comments OffInteresting post on the naked capitalism blog today, taking off on Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s comment that the U.S. may be in the middle of a W-shaped—or double dip—recession. Which means another economic contraction sooner rather than later. As poster Yves Smith sees it:
The real issue is the ongoing con job. Team Obama has made it clear that it sees restoring confidence as paramount, when anyone with consumer marketing experience will tell you that advertising campaigns that make exaggerated claims about the product often don’t simply fail (as in customers see through the hype) but often backfire (buyers discount future ad messages about the product). The press has had a manipulated feel (with) misleadingly positive stories with Panglossian headlines and upbeat initial paragraphs that are often undercut by other material in the same article.
So in our new branding, “the economy is no longer in a freefall” has become “recovery.” The self-congratulatory tone among US financial regulators (who should instead be engaging in serious self-recrimination for failing to foresee and prevent this crisis) is premature. The financial system has been patched up and put back together with considerable continued official support, and more important, policies in place that allow banks to go back to the craps table with the taxpayer sopping up any mess. This is not a sound foundation for growth.
If we could only come up with a slogan for our woes that raises hopes—but not expectations. Howzabout: “America—stay tuned.”
Speaking of Stliglitz, he’s also the former Chief Economist for the World Bank who became a whistle-blower of sorts after he criticized the IMF for what he characterized as destructive and doctrinaire free-market policies. Check out his Columbia University page for an archive of speeches going back to his World Bank days.
