Words of Truth
Courtesy of Michael Panzner at Financial Armageddon
People communicate with others for a great many reasons, including trying to influence their attitudes and behavior. In this case, employing terms and expression that are known to trigger an emotional response is a useful tactic that can help make audiences more receptive to what is being said.
That said, it seems that there are way too many partisan hacks, spin doctors, and pathological polemicists who absolutely depend on highly-charged language to get their message across. Worse, they regularly use words that are disenguous, at best, or dead wrong, at worst.
One problem for those who care about the truth is that messages that provoke a strong and immediate response have a natural appeal at a time when attention-spans are low and media outlets are desperate to attract advertising spending based on eyeballs or pageviews or whatever metric is being used these days.
In a 24/7 news cycle where competition is intense, that means a distorted version of reality can easily morph into conventional wisdom. Indeed, this evolutionary process forms the basis of one well known propaganda technique: "If you repeat something over and over, no matter how outrageous it may be, people will come to believe there’s some truth in it."
With that in mind, a post at The Reformed Broker by Joshua Brown, "Overuse of the Term ‘Deadbeat’ is Offensive to Me," makes a good case in point.
How many more blogs and newspaper op-eds must I read casually refe:ring to homeowners who are behind on their mortgages as "deadbeats"? As if they all took loans that they couldn’t afford. As if every single homeowner in arrears was reckless at the time of signing for their mortgage.
Let me help you out with this, bank apologists:
Mr. Smith is earning $150,000 in 2005 and he’s been with the same mid-sized business for 15 years.
He buys a home putting down 20%, borrowing the rest with a responsible and respectable 30-year mortgage.
The Credit Crisis hits 2 years later, through no fault of Mr. Smith’s. His investment portfolio is halved, the value of his house is crushed as well.
His boss at said mid-sized company calls Mr. Smith in to his office to tell him that, due to cutbacks, he would have to be let go.
Mr. Smith spends the next 9 months job hunting. He finds nothing. This is because the same banks that hold the note for his mortgage also won’t supply credit to his community’s businesses, so there are no jobs to be had.
Mr. Smith sells off what he can to keep his kids clothed and fed, maxes out his bank-supplied usurious credit cards and sells off his investment portfolio (at its lows) just to make ends meet while looking for work. He eventually falls behind on his mortgage.
Now, is Mr. Smith reckless or a Deadbeat or are you just a blackhearted lowlife animal for calling him one?
Think the case above is the exception? Think most people behind on their mortgages are lazy or profligate? Well you need to get out more and talk to people who reside outside of your fantasy bubble.
There are deadbeats and then there are erstwhile victims of the environment that the ultimate deadbeats in the financial sector brought about. And bigshots take note – it could happen to you. Reversals of fortune are as natural and frequent in this world as grains of sand in the desert. I’d be careful running that mouth of yours as if you’re guaranteed your station in life in perpetuity.
I find your lumping in of all struggling borrowers as "deadbeats" to be offensive and I’m going to start shouting you out when you use that term improperly.
Show some respect.
