Friday, July 10, 2009

Bubble Bailout Glossary of Orwellian Euphemisms


Government Ponzi Bubble Bailout Glossary

Here is your secret decoder ring to decipher the euphemistic jargon used by financial pundits and government officials, particularly regarding the bailouts (to be updated periodically).

"21st Century" (adj.) = Unaffordable
"Accountability" = Plausible deniability
"Asset" = Debt
"Bad Bank" = Taxpayer
"Build America Bonds" = Loot America bonds
"Capital" = Debt
"Create/Stimulate Demand" = Trick the public
"Financial System" = Ponzi scheme
"Green" = Greenwash
"Growth" = Inflation
"Guarantee" = Bailout
"Hedge" = Gamble
"Improving" = Rising prices/costs
"Infrastructure" = Pork
"Innovation" = Scam
"Insurance" = Moral hazard
"Invest" = Spend
"Jobless Recovery" = Stagflation
"Legacy Security" = Toxic waste that nobody wants to touch with a 10-foot pole, unless with taxpayers' money
"Lend" = Give
"Manage" = Lower ROI
"Modernize" = Spend (raise costs)
"National Security Threat" = Saver
"New GM" = Brave New GM
"Normalize" = Inflate
"Off Balance Sheet (eg, SIV)" = Accounting fraud
"Oversight" = Zzz
"Own" = Owe
"Ownership Society" = Communism (ends with state ownership of society)
"Paradox of Thrift" = Inability to milk/loot (tax/skim transactions)
"Pre-Privatize" = Nationalize
"Pre-Recovery" = Recession/depression (from bubble peak)
"Prosperity" = Debt
"Protect" = Milk/loot
"Recapitalize" = Get back on broken rollercoatser, put hand back on hot stove
"Recession/Depression" = Healthy spending levels (not a bubble)
"Recovery" = Bubble
"Rescue Chrysler" = Kill Ford
"Resources" = Credit line (ability to borrow)
"Restore" = Milk/loot
"Rule of Law" = Russian roulette
"Safeguards" = Loopholes
"Save" = Spend/consume
"Simplification" = Complication
"Stabilize" = Sabotage solution
"Standards" = Red tape
"Stimulus" = Malinvestment
"Strategic" = Unexplainable by fundamentals
"Synergy" = Neither understands what the other one does
"Systemic risk" = 'Wrong' person lost money (do over)
"Transparency" = Opacity
"Vicious Cycle" = Recovery (to sustainable non-bubble)
"Virtuous Cycle" = Reflation (inflation to new bubble)

The news makes more sense when you replace the words in government statements to decipher the true meaning.