The example above is actually pretty good. Here's The Economist's Buttonwood blog on the subject:
Huh?
IT is not easy writing headlines but Bloomberg seems to have adopted a strategy of cramming as many nouns as possible into a sentence. The result can be mind-boggling. A few weeks ago, I was baffled by the following:
"Sleep-At-night Money Lost in Lehman Lesson Missing $63 Billion".
But that was topped by two of today's efforts:
"Geithner Saying Be Like Bullish Buffett Can't Make J P Morgan Boost Lending" and "Japan Tops China Buying Treasuries as Lost Decade Survivors Debunking Pond".
I rather like the idea of a "debunking pond" into which we should tip the authors of all ridiculous theories, but what does it all mean?
Before critics of my errant typing jump in, I don't think these are errors; merely an attempt by the website to include "stopwords" that will get noticed by search engines and ensure the story gets more exposure. Any more ridiculous examples welcome.
Here's the GE story, from Bloomberg:
The Ordos region of Inner Mongolia, home to one of China’s biggest deserts, is being transformed into the site of a pine forest that will stretch across its low hills as far as the eye can see.The local government’s tree-planting program is part of a plan to “assume our green responsibilities and build a civilized way of life,” Du Zi, the local Communist Party secretary, told energy executives at a conference last month in Beijing.
Also on tap: the world’s biggest plant to convert sunlight to electricity, built by First Solar Inc. of Tempe, Arizona, part of a 12-gigawatt wind, solar and biomass power-generating zone. And General Electric Co. is helping China cut wastewater emissions into the Yellow River, which borders the region.
“This shows what local leadership can do in China these days,” says Kenneth Lieberthal, head of the Brookings Institution’s China Center in Washington, which hosted Du and other provincial officials at the Oct. 21-23 conference. “They’ve gone flat out.”
Regions are vying to outdo each other in a race to develop alternative-energy sources and cut pollution. Western China’s Gansu province is building a wind farm equivalent to about 20 nuclear-power facilities. In the east, Zhejiang province is installing solar panels on roofs. Beijing bans motorcycles from the city center in favor of electric bikes.
Greenhouse Gases
Their efforts demonstrate that China, the world’s largest producer of the pollution blamed for global warming, will continue to accelerate development of energy from renewable sources, even as it resists binding targets for reducing carbon emissions ahead of a United Nations summit in Copenhagen next month aimed at forging a new treaty to curb greenhouse gases.
Some regional officials see environmental projects as a way to boost their economies after decades when companies were allowed to poison the air and water without penalties while expanding output.
And First Solar surged $12.94, or 11 percent, to $134.41 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Sept. 8, the day Wu Bangguo, China’s second-ranking leader after President Hu Jintao, visited the company’s headquarters. The next day the company made the Ordos agreement public; it has declined to provide the value of the deal. First Solar has fallen about 11 percent since Dec. 31....MORE
The FSLR pop was an odd reaction to a conditional, ten year, plan. The stock was getting a bit ahead of the reality. Oh well.
