"Lemon" socialism

In US-English a "lemon" is a bad second hand car or something similar - in other words, a really bad deal. (In French it would maybe be "une charrue" or sthg like that...am still looking for an appropriate translation - if you have one pls put it in comments). Here is (hat tip economist) a great take on how the US Gov't (and taxpayers) are getting stuck with all the "lemons" in the economy, through successive bailouts (I expect we may get the same situation all over Europe, though we probably will nationalize more, so the taxpayers might get a better deal after all...): Lemon Socialism by Robert Reich.