On Economic Language

I have been reading Safire's On Language column too much recently. While reading Jeff Madrick "Paying the Price for Isolation" in the Economic Scene Column for the Times, I could not focus on the economics. Maybe Spring Break put my economics circuits in standby mode. Either way, I could only focus on Madrick's use of words like exuberant, conflagration and embedded. The overuse of buzzwords, augmentation by a thesis that requires orders of magnitude more evidence and articulation than can fit in a newspaper column, irked me tremendously, far more than is warranted, especially because I write no better that Madrick does and completely agree with his thesis. Argh!

According to "YourDictionary.com", exhuberant means

1. Full of unrestrained enthusiasm or joy.
2. Lavish; extravagant.
3. Extreme in degree, size, or extent.
4. Growing, producing, or produced abundantly; plentiful: "Threads of her exuberant hair showed up at the bottom of the sink" (Anne Tyler).

No one could argue that any economy, including the 'Merkin (as Safire transcribes it), is 'full of joy', though the other three definitions might apply. But I believe that Madrick's choice of works is inspired by the Maestro's comments about 'irrational exuberance'. The use of embedded, whose popularity was discussed in another recent "On Language" column, may be, in part, inspired by current military jargon which has journalists embedded with troops rather than just traveling with them or being stationed with them. Nest we will see more writers discussing ways to 'grow the economy'.
Who cares about the way economists use language? Certainly not economists. One of the few economists that I have read on this subject is D. N. McCloskey, whose works (see Economical Writing among others) never achieved the critical mass necessary to become an integral part of an economist's education. This is possibly due to the human tendency to dismiss what they do not understand (See Leading Economist Stuns Field By Deciding To Become a Woman) or it may represent the natural economic tendency to avoid costly things with ill-understood benefits, such as better communication skills.
As you can tell, I have never taken many pains to improve my own writing.