I don't disagree with you, it is a sloppy way to write, but quite common when the writer has a lot of emotion and not a lot of patience to go cite the specific conversations.
So lets take one example and work through it, martythemaniak's wrote:
"At the onset of the 2008 crisis, some people very accurately predicted the type of crisis it was (a financial panic) and recommended policies that were tested and proven to work."
Using the search terms "Iceland Bank Reform" lead me to a whitepaper [1] from Mercatus which goes into great detail about the controversy around the decision to eliminate debt, it cites several economists and papers, both from the time period and the present looking back. A similar search for "Ireland banking crisis" leads to a similar set of papers where people discuss how to pull Ireland out of the mud.
So what does this say about Marty's writing style? and our reading of it? Well it says Marty throws out his emotional angst over this (perhaps he advocated the debt canceling path for Ireland, I don't know) with his comment that "some people" recommended things known to work, clearly at least a few of those people were advising the Icelandic government as they implemented those ideas. If we're engaged readers we do our own legwork, we can attach names to those people. It's more work for us, and perhaps less satisfying that way.
The comment was accused of not saying "anything" when in fact it did say things. What it did not do was to lay out evidence for the claims made, Further, the use of the passive voice made pulling out the information which would help the reader research the claims more difficult.
So there are at least three things going on here, one an emotional rant from someone who believed in strategies that Iceland implemented, but were widely criticized in other economies, feeling vindicated. Second, a quickly thrown together narrative about the tunnel vision which lead to this situation. And finally, a turgid writing style which imposes an unnecessary burden on the reader trying to understand the meaning or substance behind the rant.
So lets take one example and work through it, martythemaniak's wrote:
"At the onset of the 2008 crisis, some people very accurately predicted the type of crisis it was (a financial panic) and recommended policies that were tested and proven to work."
Using the search terms "Iceland Bank Reform" lead me to a whitepaper [1] from Mercatus which goes into great detail about the controversy around the decision to eliminate debt, it cites several economists and papers, both from the time period and the present looking back. A similar search for "Ireland banking crisis" leads to a similar set of papers where people discuss how to pull Ireland out of the mud.
So what does this say about Marty's writing style? and our reading of it? Well it says Marty throws out his emotional angst over this (perhaps he advocated the debt canceling path for Ireland, I don't know) with his comment that "some people" recommended things known to work, clearly at least a few of those people were advising the Icelandic government as they implemented those ideas. If we're engaged readers we do our own legwork, we can attach names to those people. It's more work for us, and perhaps less satisfying that way.
The comment was accused of not saying "anything" when in fact it did say things. What it did not do was to lay out evidence for the claims made, Further, the use of the passive voice made pulling out the information which would help the reader research the claims more difficult.
So there are at least three things going on here, one an emotional rant from someone who believed in strategies that Iceland implemented, but were widely criticized in other economies, feeling vindicated. Second, a quickly thrown together narrative about the tunnel vision which lead to this situation. And finally, a turgid writing style which imposes an unnecessary burden on the reader trying to understand the meaning or substance behind the rant.
[1] http://mercatus.org/publication/iceland-and-ireland-banking-...