Bernanke’s ‘green shoots’ turns into daffodils in Lexicon

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: Jim O’Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, said April 27 that the green shoots of global economic recovery are “turning into daffodils,” when he upgraded his forecast for 2010 world growth to 3.2% from 2.8%.

‘It’s Moss’ “Housing is still a drag on the economy,” David Coard , head of fixed-income trading in New York at Williams Capital Group, a brokerage for institutional investors, said May 26. “It may be green shoots, but they are growing slowly. It’s moss.”

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett joked June 24 that he had yet to see any green shoots, adding that his eyesight may be to blame. “We’re not seeing them,” Buffett said on CNBC. “I had a cataract operation in my left eye about a month ago and I thought, maybe now I’ll be able to see some green shoots.”

Bernanke’s tendrils of economic hope have been compared with trees and mold. They have been said to be on the verge of blossoming, as well as in danger of withering, browning and succumbing to frost. Nouriel Roubini , the New York University economist referred to as Dr. Doom for predicting the current crisis, enlisted the phrase to temper budding optimism about the economy.

“People talk a lot about these green shoots,” Roubini said June 22 in Paris. Yet looking at the economic data, he said, “I see more yellow weeds than green shoots.” Instead, he predicted the recession in the advanced economies would last another six to nine months.

The phrase has also spilled over into non-economic realms.