When is an asset a “troubled asset”?
Monday, October 20th, 2008If you haven’t yet heard about TARP, you probably will do any day soon. TARP is the US government’s “Troubled Asset Relief Program”—a $700,000,000,000 slush fund for Hank and Co. to bail out their buddies on Wall Street and throughout the US banking sector. It’s not just in the USA that this kind of organized crime has taken root. It’s all the rage from London to Sydney too. But what is particularly striking about Hank’s little plan is the clever title he gave it, incorporating the term “troubled asset”. In my absolute ignorance, I always thought that a troubled asset was a liability.
- asset (noun): a thing owned by a person or company, considered as having value and which can be used to pay debts
- liability (noun): a thing for which a person or company is responsible, especially a debt or financial obligation
“When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.” - Confucius
