Wall Street brinkmanship. It’s the metaphor that journalists and scotch-swilling brokers use to transubstantiate dollars and cents into bullets and bluster.
So this morning, making my way through The New York Times excellent crisis coverage, it shouldn’t have been too surprising to see two metaphors for Uncle Sam and the money-men’s actions that evoke a macho stare down at the O.K. Corral.
Here’s one, emphasis added, from the lede of the headlining news analysis piece, by Vikas Bajaj and Floyd Norris.
Wall Street and the federal government played a game of chicken over the weekend, and neither side backed down, pushing Lehman Brothers toward bankruptcy and setting off worries of a worldwide sell-off when markets open on Monday.
And here’s the other, from the kicker of the lead hard news piece, penned by Andrew Ross Sorkin:
Outside the public eye, Fed officials had acquired much more information since March about the interconnections and cross-exposure to risk among Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds and traders in the vast market for credit-default swaps and other derivatives. In the end, both Wall Street and the Fed blinked.
Wait: So which is it? Steel nerves, or flinchy-folding? Well, this shootout looks big enough for the both of ‘em.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.