Sloganeering

A traditional finance minister’s speech surveys the economic data, including unemployment, wages, inflation, interest rates, the dollar, public and private debt, the trade balance and balance of payments deficit, and total and per capita gross domestic product (GDP).

Trade-offs are made unashamedly. A minister might concede without embarrassment that interest rates and unemployment are up, but that this is the price of bringing down inflation. They might acknowledge the average wage has stayed