We all put our pants on one leg at a time

Michael Diamond, a business writer at the Asbury Park Press, writes about how there’s little difference between business journalists and the people they cover.

Diamond writes, “I always enjoy telling the story of how I became a business reporter without taking a single economics class in elementary school, high school or college. About how I traipsed around for the first, oh, 10 years of my career without any real understanding of what I was doing. About the embarrassing questions I asked — about the difference between sales and profits, about how the bond market works, about how the Small Business Administration calculates its funding. I wish I could have avoided that pain.

“But it turns out, we were all in the same boat. No one had a very good grasp of economics. Not the consumer who signed on for a subprime loan. Not the CEO who signed off on bonuses with one hand and took taxpayer money with the other. Not the elected leaders who got so confused by, say, the financial services industry, they handed legislation over to the companies themselves.

“It continues, by the way, even with the Obama election. I was watching a couple of the Sunday morning shows yesterday and saw Vice President Biden and Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, plow through the details of their economic stimulus proposals. Before I could wrap my mind around what they had said, the host was onto the next topic. By the way, just once I’d like to see the host say: ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you explain it again?'”

Read more here.