A fools guide to bankers lies and terminology

Interpreting financial lingo typically produces a kind of gorilla like head scratching while I stare blankly at the screen tying not to show any weakness in the face of such puzzling terminology. Sometimes I get lucky.

Toxic Assets.....wheee, and easy one! Toxic=bad, and assets are some kind of resource. It means bad resources, or negative resources.

Leverage.... errrr, head scratch, blank stare.

Thankfully, David Malone, author of Debt Generation, in his blog Golem XIV has offered a road map to much of this financial jargon. A blog of particular use was Liars Lexicon in which David explains many of these terms in a very understandable way. He also comments on banking and government policy.