Fed and US Treasury Give-Away (Looting) $8 Trillion and Counting
New Bank Credit Lines Rated by Moody’s Drop to Six-Year Low
Bloomberg.com, Dec 17, 2008 [here]
… The $8.5 trillion committed by the U.S. to rescue the financial system hasn’t succeeded in unlocking credit markets that seized up with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in 2007. …
Economy rescue: Adding up the dollars
CNNMoney.com, Dec 4, 2008 [here]
[$7.2 trillion committed and $2.6 trillion already spent.]
Financial Crisis Tab Already In The Trillions and Counting
CNBC.com, Nov. 28, 2008 [here]
Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money at the financial crisis, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress, might not be faulted for losing track.
CNBC, however, has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved. And there’s been quite a jump since we last tabulated things two weeks ago.
Try $7.36 trillion dollars. That’s more than double what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources. …
Fed Covers Up Financial Crisis–Bailout Cost May Be Much Higher
Investment-blog.net, Nov. 12, 2008, [here]
While the government is clearly spending a lot of taxpayers’ money to bail out financial firms, the tally is even bigger than most Americans (economists and pundits included) are probably aware or willing to admit.
The bailout bonanza has gotten so big and happened so fast it’s the true cost often gets lost in the discussion. Maybe Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke prefer it that way because the tally so far is nearly $3.5 trillion, and that’s before a likely handout for the auto industry.
Yes, $3.45 trillion has already been spent, as Bailoutsleuth.com details:
$2T Emergency Fed Loans (the ones the Fed won’t discuss, as detailed here)
$700B TARP (designed to buy bad debt, the fund is rapidly transforming as we’ll discuss in an upcoming segment)
$300B Hope Now (the government’s year-old attempt at mortgage workouts)
$200B Fannie/Freddie
$140B Tax Breaks for Banks (WaPo has the details)
$110B: AIG (with it’s new deal this week, the big insurer got $40B of TARP money, plus $110B in other relief)
Tallying up the “true” cost of the bailout is difficult, and won’t be known for months if not years. But considering $3.5 trillion is about 25% of the U.S. economy ($13.8 trillion in 2007) and the U.S. deficit may hit $1 trillion in fiscal 2009, hyperinflation and/or sharply higher interest rates seem likely outcomes down the road.
Ed Note: and none of that includes the Obama Stimulus Package, now pegged at $775 billion:
Obama economic team tries to allay worries about stimulus plan
LA Times, Dec 24, 2008 [here]
Vice President-elect Joe Biden met with seven advisors for an hour here as Obama vacationed in Hawaii. With the incoming administration acknowledging the stimulus plan could cost as much as $775 billion over two years, Biden seemed intent on reassuring Americans the money would not be wasted. …
by Chauncy
I’ve always lived within my income. I borrowed only for my home and a new car. I put away a substantial portion of my income as savings. I invested in the American Economy buying stocks and bonds. I had an IRA and a 401(k).
AND, over the past 12 months, I’ve lost 40% of my net worth. Nice…
Meanwhile WaMu executives, while taking multi-million dollar bonuses, were lending money to people who could never repay the loans, expecting (as in entitlement) that the price of the home would go up before the before the bill came due
AIG executives were insuring credit default swaps to Wall Street cronies while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at exclusive resorts getting massages, eating expensive meals and generally spending investors money (and also taking millions in pay).
The system has a hiccup and the FED rushes to bailout who? Well WaMu got a big slice of the $1.6 TRILLION TAF, AIG got $152.5 BILLION, and the rest of the crooks made off with over $8 TRILLION of taxpayers money from the Treasury.
State worker? No problem, your PERS is guaranteed, 8% per year no matter what the stock market does. Taxpayers will pay. Fed worker? No worry, your job is secure, you can’t be fired no matter how incompetent you are. Taxpayers are happy to have you work for them (or is it REALLY the other way around?)
So how many checks did YOU receive? I got the BIG NADA!!! Bet you did too. I have come to realize, it just doesn’t pay to live within your means. Spend all you earn, run up those credit cards as high as you can, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Don’t worry the Messiah (Bite Me Obama!!) will bail you out. Sure…
Was it a conspiracy? Well if it was Bush was in on it with Obama. The Republicrats and the Dempublicans are all in on it, ain’t a dime’s worth of difference far as I can see!
And the POTUS-elect, yep ol’ Hussein himself, is going to hire thousands of new FED workers in make-work positions. How will he pay them? Well, he can borrow the money. But no sane person will buy Treasury notes paying zero interest. He can increase taxes (a likely scenario) on those of us who still have some income. Or he can just have the FED print some more money. Probably will be a mix of all three.
The result will be a bankrupt country with hyperinflation that eats up any dollars you still may have. Don’t bury it in a coffee can, it’ll be worthless by the time you get it dug back up.
I always figured keeping our country free was going to be a battle. With the socialists (communists) slowly encroaching on our freedoms, I never figured a “compassionate conservative” would be the one to lead us over the edge.
I still have confidence in the American People. We just won’t stand for this will we? We’ll see.