Economy · 07/09
Wall Street Proposes Renaming Market Losses “Downward Growth”
Investors report that the new terminology has not made their rent any easier to pay.
NEW YORK, IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE — Financial executives are considering a terminology overhaul under which negative returns would be officially described as “downward growth.”
Analysts said the phrase could make quarterly presentations sound more optimistic, although investors would still lose precisely the same amount of money. A pilot program replaced red arrows with arrows described as “energetically southbound.”
The exchange issued a brief statement: “We can change a chart’s font. We cannot change arithmetic.”