Because Hyperbole is such easy clickbait, so many of those pushing economic “views”, are incentivised to lace these to the very extreme. Have, that is, titles and content of such gross exaggeration, that listeners and readers feel compelled, as it were, not to switch off, or put down.

The reality of ever so much (unrefereed) economic spiel, is that the adjectives employed, bear no relation to the actual “quant” reality, being discussed or projected. We have all too often seen headlines along the lines of “Dow suffers a staggering fall”, or “Wall Street soars”. These would however accompany what was in actual fact, say a decline of 3% or respective 4% rise. Were such hyperbole not enough of a frustration, we invariably also suffer the absence of context. After all the first and second “daily headlines” could book-end a week in which the DJ ended flat; and let’s be perfectly honest, “flat” makes for a very flat headline.

Were it not enough that commercial scribblers on economics succumb to hyperbolicBS, we have to suffer as politicians try to beguile us in the same way, with wayward exaggeration. The most recent instance of this came with the new Chancellor’s “bombshell discovery” of a “staggering” £20 billion annual black hole in UK State finances.

Now, imagine had the Chancellor’s staggeringly large number been presented as a % of the UK Government’s annual tax receipts of £1.1 trillion. This real revelation by Reeves would have been exposed for what it in fact was, underwhelmingly de minimus; a mere rounding error “in the greater scheme of financial things”.

What then of the “the UK’s spectacular descent into deep indebtedness, hurtling up to a staggering 100% of its GDP.” Well, here the only thing that staggers me is yet another absence of context. After all, suppose we were to consider UK NATIONAL debt in the same way we treat say a residential mortgage. Using this perfectly reasonable approach, would reveal that our actual “Gilt burden” is a not unreasonable c2.5 times multiple of its annual “tax income”.

Let us continue with further perfectly sensible proportionate context. One could point to what the ONS guesstimates (one too low in my view) is the UK’s c£12 trillion net worth, and say that as far as LTV’s go, the UK is extremely well covenanted.

The reality is that whilst economist scribblers and chatterboxes produced ragging headlines regarding the “BIG Reeves Reveal”, and the “UK’s MASSIVE DEBT BURDEN”, there was a marked absence of any meaningful headline concerning higher Gilt yields or a weakened £. And the reason there were no such headlines, was simply this. There were simply no such moves in these key markets.

Now, if I wanted to perfectly easily hook an audience with shameless hyperbole I would title a piece “The reasons I am convinced Spurs will shock and win the Premier League.”

I am confident you would find yourself unable to resist reading at least the first dozen lines, before you awakened to the fact there was no factual basis to such hyperbolicBS.