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Bailouts hit $8.5 trillion
Friday, November 28, 2008
There seems to be something of a "cottage industry" developing around trying to account for the U.S. government's many and varied bailout programs, most of these efforts attempting to add up the current and potential costs, each one coming up with yet a higher total.
This report at the San Francisco Chronicle is two days old, so it may already be out of date, but it has a very nice chart that is well worth sharing which happens to include the highest potential cost of the bailouts to have crossed my desk - a whopping $8.5 trillion.
There's been over a trillion dollars committed during this holiday shortened week alone and the week isn't over yet - surely someone has already calculated an even higher total.
Here's the chart:
Pretty amazing...
How's this all going to be paid for again???
10 comments:
with pennies on the dollar...
We're not, and I don't think there's anyone left with even minimal knowledge of how the system is "working" who still thinks that we are. I'm kinda surprised nobody important has suggested suspending taxes all-together "until we recover", as the ultimate laugh at the expense of those who think the US will ever repay their massive debt. Sure it might hasten the inevitable demise, but think of how many completely ignorant voters would be overjoyed to not pay any taxes any more, at a cost of less than our current projected annual deficit...
A just-about-relevant remark from Martin Wolf:
"Keynes said, of course, that “practical men … are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”. So, of course, are economists, even if the defunct economists are sometimes still alive."
Bailout 2008, a poem by David Jeffrey:
Like a bloodied warrior,
laying broken and torn.
Like a dying soldier, hopeless and forlorn.
But the blood, it be green,
the color of money.
And the soldier is an economy,
and it is anything but funny.
Broken are it's people and shattered are their dreams.
Thanks to the ultra rich and their full proof schemes.
It is a tragedy with more pain to come.
Finance will be Hell, and their wills will be done.
Click to purchase Print
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that poem pretty much says it all
Now, the economic pain will spread out across the economy in a ripple effect
This will result in layoffs and business closures
,...pretty sad
Take a second look - waiting for the collapse is enjoyable in a perverse way -- but -- it isn't here yet - not based on current numbers.
Note real loss probability to date based on draw downs against each seperate program - even at 20% loss the number is painful but not deadly.
The july stimulus checks were the worst "loss" in terms of taxpayer subsidy and addition to the deficit.
The other numbers ie FDIC guarantees, TAF and Commericial paper programs need not have any tangible cost to the taxpayer.
The TARP however - is a load of bad ,MBS which may see a $250billion write down.
Bottom line - as of current the deficit costs in next two years is less than $300billion (loss) - just sayin.
Money can be made trading this awesome volatility. But the idea of bailing out poorly run companies in a Socialistic way is perverse. America is all about Free Enterprise and Capitalism. What happened to survival of the fittest?? Let the companies fail, what will be built up out of the remains will be true and strong
The poem is great!
Socialism, capitalism, etc. Maybe it's all dead.
Maybe the Venus Project has it right: Do away with money and forget all this nonsense.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/intro_main/whatis_tvp.htm
Maybe this is the beginning of the end of money, a la Star Trek.
I remember thinking as a kid watching Star Trek that I could sure have a blast with that food replicator.
If the replicator could make a turkey dinner, it could also make a Johnny Astro!
I wonder what happens to money if scarcity is eliminated by technology?
"How's this all going to be paid for again???"
Inflation? That 8.5 trillion will barely buy a week's groceries by 2012. I hope I get a raise.
It will be paid for with a lower standard of living in the retirement years of Generations X, Y, and Z.
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