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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: The financial world is moving in quicksand. My comments: The financial world is moving slowly, hence the economy is stagnant, and perhaps dangerously so. Likened to a person, the financial world progresses as someone moves in a swamp, struggling with each and every step – if he could move at all. The “quick” in quicksand is a misnomer. It doesn’t mean fast. The “quick” here means “live” as in the old English expression “the quick and the dead” (all people including the alive and the dead). And there isn’t much liveliness about a quicksand, of course. Quicksand, technically, is like a swamp, or muddy seashore full of wet, muddy silt. If you ever find yourself in a swamp you’ll know how it feels to walk on such squishy-squashy surface. The mud sucks your feet in – giving you a sinking feeling. The more you struggle, the greater the pull you seem to feel at the feet. And people sometimes sink and lose their lives in quicksand. So, in short, to move in quicksand is to move slowly – not fast – if you can move at all. Or figuratively speaking, to find oneself in quicksand is to be in a difficult position, or a situation of downright danger. Hence, to say the financial world is moving in quicksand is to suggest that the financial world (the stock market, bank borrowing/lending etc) is slow moving, and that the economy is stagnant, and perhaps even dangerously so – no light at the end of the tunnel detected yet. | 
