These are exciting times with banks crashing, insurance companies being nationalised (by GW Bush!) and so forth. Back on page 33 of today’s Guardian there is an article headlined “Merrill Lynch boss to get $11m payoff after nine months’ work.” The same man, John Thain, was given $15 million just for taking the job. He says he made progress but any rational person would say he failed. Merrill Lynch was forcibly taken over (saved) by Bank of America a few days ago. It looks like Thain will get his payout as well: a deal is a deal and the goodbye money is in his contract. Or in other words: the people employing him either did not think he could fail or did not care. And we’re told it’s the markets that can be irrationally exuberant.

On a related note, can anyone tell me what journalists mean when they write, for example, that Russia is “pumping” $60 billion into its three largest banks? Another article in the same issue of the Guardian uses this verb as well as “injecting” money into money markets and “using” its (Russia’s) reserves. Does it just mean “give”? The Irish Times is at it too: “Central banks pump over $180bn into markets.” Other phrases from the same article: “make available,” “flooding,” “on offer,” and “assign.” It does say at one point that money is being “lent” but the context is: “…European Central Bank also lent out extra funds in their own currencies…” as if this lending were something other than flooding, assigning, pumping, injecting. Or is “also” used because it’s local currency as well as dollars? Genuine question.