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Reader question: Please explain “political horse trading”, as in: “By that time, there will be a lot of political horse trading,” he said. My comments: Simply put, political negotiations. “Horse trading” is a metaphor. Here, it may refer to any political wheeling and dealing, using cunning and tricks to get the best deal one can get. It’s not just politicians who engage in that type of horse trading, of course. Businesspeople do that too. For instance, if two members of the board of a firm tell each other that they would agree to name Person A as Chief Executive Officer only if Person B is named CFO (Chief Financial Officer, but never mind), then that’s horse trading of a political nature. It is definitely political horse trading if, for instance, Person C is best qualified for the top job. But Person C is not going to be named CDO because he doesn’t have the support of the board, most members of which want to name one of their cronies to run the firm. That’s a good example of what political horse trading is about. And if you smell something fishy, you’ve got it right. And why is that? Well, that has a lot to do with the term horse trading, a term that has always given bad connotations ethically. Originally, you see, horse trading refers to the buying and selling (trading) of horses. In the old horse trading market, it was prevalent practice for the seller to represent his horses as better – younger, stronger – than they actually were in order to fetch a good price. If you weren’t shrewd enough, you were likely to pay a high price for an old horse and feel cheated afterwards. | 
