More Republican Socialism

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The $700 billion bailout was supposed to unfreeze the credit markets. The idea, in part, was that the Govt would give banks large amounts of money so that the banks would once again start lending money to those who need it.

Well, first we learned that Wall Street's top banks were going to use about $70 billion of that money for employee compensation (a substantial amount reportedly for BONUSES).

Now we learn that "U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years".

Gee, handouts are A-OK with the "fiscally conservative" Republicans as long as it is to their thieving buddies.

But just in case I am getting this thing totally wrong, I looked up Dictionary.com for some definitions.

Bonus: "Something given or paid over and above what is due".

Dividend (in the context of shareholders): "A sum of money paid to shareholders of a corporation out of earnings". (emphasis mine)

Hmm. Neither of those words imply any guarantees. As I understand it, if performance is poor, or if the company is having bad times with regard to earnings, one is guaranteed neither a bonus nor a dividend.

Where does the concept if guaranteed benefits come from?

Entitlement: "The right to guaranteed benefits under a government program, as Social Security or unemployment compensation".

Then again, I keep forgetting that all these definitions, these words of a language that I am so mentally shackled to, are all now OldSpeak.

I keep forgetting that for years now we have been using Newspeak. Silly me.

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