'Black Swans' and 'Perfect Storms': Wall Street Reaches for Cliché to Excuse Your Withered 401(k) - WSJ - 0 views
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Lara Cowell on 15 Jul 22Market and economic downturns have always sent analysts searching for easy and relatable explanations in the form of metaphoric cliches. Author Gregory Zuckerman suggests, "Descriptive imagery can be helpful, providing a way to visualize an event or challenge. Vicious periods for stock investors have long been described as bear markets (often with a dependable modifier, "grinding"). Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote: "The metaphor is perhaps the most fruitful power of man. Its efficacy verges on magic." But many see the reflexive resort to trite analogies as unhelpful, even misleading. "People feel a need to make sense of events and find explanations, and this gives a veneer of credibility, but in fact the executives have no clue and are flailing around like everyone else," Mr. [Sydney] Finkelstein [a corporate-leadership professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College] said. "It's the perfect excuse to shift blame."