"Both" is often a problem; this is worse

About that last sentence...

Both the central bank and the government impact the economy... 

That is true.

... the central bank and the government impact the economy... 

That is equally true. Depending on the context, it may be better to include the word "both".

... the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary policy and fiscal policy...

That would make a good sentence. Neither policy is explicitly assigned to either institution, so the sentence is true.

... the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary and fiscal policy, respectively.

That one is the most informative would-be sentence of all these options, because the policies are correctly assigned to the institutions. And finally:

Both the central bank and the government impact the economy through monetary and fiscal policy, respectively.

That is gibberish. Investopedia is saying that the central bank and the government, both of them, use both monetary and fiscal policy. (That is not true; the central bank was created specifically to handle monetary policy, and is held to be "independent" and free from government interference.) And in the same sentence Investopedia is also saying that the first of the two institutions uses the first policy noted, and the second institution uses the second policy. This they are correct in saying, but it is contradicted by all the words that come before "respectively" because of that damn "both".

That is, because they open with the word "both" they are saying that both the central bank and the government use the two policies -- that each institution uses both policies. And because the word respectively is used, they are also saying that the central bank uses only monetary policy and the government uses only fiscal policy. Because they have the word "respectively" there, the sentence is not only wrong but is also embarrassingly bad. I imagine, however, that Investopedia is not at all embarrassed, because they are unaware of the problem. That's how illiteracy works.

Frankly, I have similar problems with Investopedia's economics.

"Nine inches of rain" is ONE measurement

Nine inches of rain is one measurement, so I say Nine inches of rain has fallen, rather than Nine inches of rain have fallen (as CNN says).

Installing the paint-dot-net upgrade

I use paint.net often. Microsoft Paint is better at some things, so I switch off. But paint.net is good.

But I just installed the paint.net update, and an "Overview/Features" page came up in my browser. It says: 

paint.net 5 is the best free image and photo editing application for Windows based PCs since paint.net 4. 

So why would I want to use version 5? They compare version 5 to version 4, and they explicitly point out that version 5 is not better.

If they said 5 is better, and left it at that, I wouldn't question their sanity.

If they said 5 is the best version ever, I'd be all in.

But when they 

Oh, drop it, Art!

Right and wrong

At the US Census Bureau...

From the definition of "family household":

... The count of family household members differs from the count of family members, however, in that the family household members include all people living in the household, whereas family members include only the householder and his/her relatives.

From the definition of "family":

... The number of families is equal to the number of family households, however, the count of family members differs from the count of family household members because family household members include any non-relatives living in the household.

 

In their definition of "family" quoted above, I would change the first comma to a period, and use a capital "H" for "however". It is a simple fix.

The simplicity of the fix, unfortunately, may make it seem as if the error is not a significant one. However, the error is significant.

(The simple fix should NOT be made to their definition of "family household".)

For me it is a problem. I got distracted because they don't know how to punctuate the word "however". Because I got distracted I'm not going to remember the definitions. When I need them again, I'll have to look them up again.

andor

"People are paid to create goods and/or services ..."

"People are paid to create goods andor services ..."

I'm ready for that word. I looked for it on the internet. Seems to be drowned out by Andor, the TV series.

a most interesting page

 'dis' vs 'un'

https://painintheenglish.com/case/3431

One sentence from Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, from 1937:

"I fully agree with the important point he [Mr. Robertson] makes (pp. 180-183) that the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest; and this is, indeed, a significant element in my theory of why booms carry within them the seeds of their own destruction."

For my purposes, the sentence has three parts

1. I fully agree ... that
2. [interaction of economic forces described]
3. the part after the semicolon.

The first part matters because the point Robertson makes is important, because Keynes fully agrees with it, and because we can still read the original (at pp. 180-183) if we are willing to pay the access fee. None of that matters, though, unless one holds Keynes in high esteem.

The last part matters because an economic boom carrying the seeds of its own destruction would explain why business cycles exist. To me, given that studying the economy is my hobby, the last part is what makes the sentence important and me willing to dwell on it.

The middle part matters. This is where the interaction of economic forces is described. Nothing is more important, if one's goal is to understand the economy.

For me as a blogger, though, the important thing is to understand what makes the sentence so good. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to talk about the economy in a way that makes sense to people and makes them want to read what I write. I'm not very good at that. That's why I'm looking at the sentence from Keynes.

When I first read the sentence, I wrote:

In other words, as a boom continues, the increasing cost of interest subtracts increasingly from profits, from aggregate demand, and from economic growth, until the downward pressure is enough to turn boom into recession.

I'm satisfied with that as a technically correct interpretation of the meat of Keynes's sentence, at least as I interpret it. I'm okay with that.

But it lacks the lightness of "the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest". Rather than light, mine is dreary. I think this must affect people's willingness to read me.

So I am looking at the Keynes sentence and looking for what makes it light and readable.

 

He doesn't list things in chronological sequence, the way I did and do. Keynes starts with "the increased demand for money" which is a result. But I think the phrase "the increased demand for money" is an attention-getter, even among people who are not interested in the economy. So putting that first is a good idea.

Also, the out-of-sequence technique seems to make the chain of causality shorter and easier to grasp. My paraphrase, above, lists one cause, three intermediate results, and the final, important part. That's a long chain to hold in the mind. Too long to be comfortable.

As Keynes has it, the attention-getting "demand for money" has one cause and one result. That's simple and easy to grasp. And the result isn't even a "result". It is a "backwash". A repercussion. His meaning is clear, and his wording is easy to take.

New rule: Make the wording easy to take.