bad bank

bad bank
 n.β€”Gloss: A government-run bank that intentionally takes on the bad debts and deals of another bank that is in financial jeopardy. Β«Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, condemns the term β€œbad bank.” He says the term does not exactly inspire support for the program. Maybe it should be called the β€œDamascus Road” bank, he says, or maybe the Fed should have a linguist look into something else more appealing. Mr. Bernanke replies that it’s officially called an β€œaggregator bank,” not a β€œbad bank.” Mr. Cleaver says that term is unlikely to catch on, and that perhaps a three-year-old should come up with something that rolls a bit more trippingly off the tongue.Β» β€”β€œLive-Blogging the Bernanke Hearing” by Catherine Rampell New York Times: Economix Feb. 10, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Sleepy Winks (episode #1584)

It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...

Salad Days (episode #1582)

A documentary film called My Beautiful Stutter follows youngsters at a summer camp specifically for stutterers. It’s a place for finding acceptance, support, and confidence for navigating the larger world. And:, “The High Priestess of...

Recent posts