LEGACY

A legacy is an inheritance, a birthright, a bequest, or a heritage.  Some families have a heritage or tradition of participation in politics.  Some famous families have participated in the entertainment industry for many generations.  My family’s legacy is the belief in higher education.  Whatever the legacy, it is a word that is synonymous with something positive.  This word has become the victim of our government’s use of positive words to whitewash negative situations or laws.  “Toxic assets” are now “legacy assets.”

Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning.  The U.S. government has become expert at covering up its actions with positive terminology.  The Patriot Act implies that it is a set of laws designed to protect patriotic Americans.  “Down sizing, right sizing and reduction in force” are corporate America’s positive spin when there are layoffs.

The term “toxic assets” was also a poor choice of words. Toxic implies those banks assets are poisonous, deadly, lethal, noxious, contaminated, or venomous.  Perhaps that may be true if applied to the banks’ balance sheets.   The truth is that those “toxic assets” do have value but the banks lent money inappropriately and now need to defend their behavior.  “Legacy assets” sounds so much better and implies they were inherited from some past evil doer.