JOHN McCAIN Meet Wall Street

"Pilot: This is chrome-plated stove-pipe triple-nickle eight ball, angels eight, five in the slot, boots on and laced, I wanna bounce and blow.

Tower: Roger, you've got the nod to hit the sod."

The following Vietnam War Fighter Pilot JARGON key is provided in order to expedite discussions and reduce confusions with John McCain concerning TARP (aka Wall Street Clusterf---)

Agent Orange: A toxic equity tranche
Body Count: Number of bankers fired
E&E: Escape and evasion tactics: Often applied by Wall Street CEOs
Hootch: What investors smoke before they visit Bear Stearns and Lehman
Gook: What you will find in Lehman and AIG's financial footnotes
Level 3 Asset: Covert assets
DC: Dick Cheney then, Dick Cheney now
C Rations: Stale sandwiches from Kaplans deli.
AWOL: Chairman Cox during the runup of the great meltdown.
CYA: Cover your ass (Political strategy)
Delta neutral: A Wall Street hedging strategy not to be confused with Mekong Delta.
Oversight: What Congress must do: Excuse us for the oversight.
AAA: Anti Aircraft Artillery/ also Rating Agency Jargon
AVRN: Already Very Rough Numbers
FNG: F--king new guy!
Go juice: Prune juice
HUD: Heads up display (Housing and Urban Development, where the subprime mess started)
Ho Chi Minh Trail: AMTRACK
Golden Parachute: Every pilot and CEO must have one
Tailhook: The contingent liability payable under a CDS
SAM: S---ty asset markdowns
Bandits: Wall Street Bankers
Jesus Bolt: The nut that holds everything together (Hank Paulson)
Gigahertz and Nanoseconds ~ Highly technical, detailed, and hard to understand ("It's getting down to gigahertz and nanoseconds.")

Lost the Bubble ~ Got confused or forgot what was happening. Alan Greenspan lost the bubble.

Loud Handle ~ Lever or grip that fires ejection seat. Often used by Wall Street CEOs.

LTCM: An early Wall Street ICBM

Peter Pilot ("PP"): Affectionate name for inexperienced pilot newbie or Vice Presidential running mate.

R&R: What Congress takes every 3 business days and what George Bush does for a living.
Selling short: What the US government does to its Armed Forces
Smoking Hole ~ A bottomless write off.
TOP Gun: A derivative salesman
Tunneling: What hedge fund managers do to financial reports
Up on the Governor ~ When someone is about to have a tantrum (term comes from the device that keeps the engine from overspeeding).
Up to Speed, or Up to Snuff ~ To understand or to know what's going on.
Swiftboating: There you go again ;-)
Unknown Unknowns: The OTC derivatives market
VC: Venture capitalist
FWMD: Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction

"Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a bond trader's mule, the Reuters is gone and we're leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we'd need sleigh bells on this thing... but we got one little budge on them Congressmen. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain't gonna spot us on no CSPAN screen!"

From Dr. Strangeloan

I hope this is helpful.



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