Greenspan: Oh Good, I Thought it Was Just Me

When she's not shaking or baking our little fledgling Portfolio, Gawker/DealBreaker founder Elizabeth Spiers takes on more established targets. In fact, in the September issue of Business 2.0, she puts a sharp fork to one of the most institutional of all business institutions -- "Greenspanish."

Now, Jack Flack has always relished any parsing opportunity, but could never understand how so much could be manufactured out of so little when Greenspan spoke. Coming across Spiers' piece, Jack anticipated simply a smart, spirited razzing of the overstated significance of the Understated One.

But the final two graphs actually delivered more than that, with each containing a nice little "ah-ha" nugget.

Nugget #1 -- "And insofar as we don't fully understand what's going on, we want someone to just tell us what to do."

Bingo. Jack tried to order a smoothie the other day, and became so confused by the 50X50 matrix of arcane options that he ended up pleading with the 16-year-old behind the counter to simply pick something -- anything -- into which Jack could plunge a straw. (The economy is not as complicated as the smoothie matrix, but you get the point.)

Nugget #2 -- "We also like the idea of someone being in charge, even if his powers are largely illusory...."

Again, bingo. We want there to be a Wizard of Oz. And when we find out there isn't one, we are not disappointed to learn about the man behind curtain. We are relieved, and later want to read his memoirs.