PrintDecember 1, 2008
How Much is that Bailout in the Window?
The bailout is ballooning. Imagine that. Some estimates now put the total bill at over 8 trillion dollars.
Those of you who thought that the money was going to the poor folks holding bad mortgages need to think again.
According to Mike Sunnucks writing for the Sacramento Business Journal:
The $8.5 trillion includes the $700 billion bank and Wall Street bailout; federal takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, individualized bailouts for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) and American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG); and various cash infusions into financial and lending markets by the Fed. The $700 billion includes federal equity buys into Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and other financial institutions.
Bloomberg has a much more conservative number. They see the bailout as a measly $7.76 trillion:
The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
Forbes has the bailout pegged at a paltry $6.3 trillion.
No matter which estimate it true, when the government throws a trillion dollars here and a trillion dollars there, pretty soon the government is squandering some real money -- and creating real socialism.
Our government is now in the debt buying business -- but only for banks, businesses and (in the near future) unions "too big to fail."
For the rest of us ... well, there is always Chapter 11 and the soup lines.
Hat tip: FIL
