Distancing. It lets people who make these decisions portray themselves as the helpless victims of the way things are, rather than people who have made choices t

Distancing. It lets people who make these decisions portray themselves as the helpless victims of the way things are, rather than people who have made choices that have led to this. "The market says that we need to downsize" sounds a lot better than "an investment analyst says I go, or you go".