Lemon socialism
Lemon socialism is a pejorative term for a form of government intervention in which government subsidies go to weak or failing firms (lemons; see Lemon law), with the effective result that the government (and thus the taxpayer) absorbs part or all of the recipient's losses. The term derives from the conception that in socialism the government may nationalize a company in its entirety, while in lemon socialism the company is allowed to keep its profits but its losses are shifted to the taxpayer.