How much money have we, the taxpayers, already spent on government bailouts?

CNBC has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved.

Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That’s $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on their computations from a variety of estimates and sources*.

Some 68-percent of the sum falls under the Federal Reserve’s umbrella, while another 16 percent is the under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, as defined under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, signed into law in early October. (The TARP alone is bigger than virtually any other US government endeavor dating back to the Louisiana Purchase. See slideshow.)

Financial Crisis Balance Sheet

Government Entity	Sum in Billions of Dollars
Federal Reserve

(TAF) Term Auction Facility	900

Discount Window Lending
Commercial Banks	99.2
Investment Banks	56.7
Loans to buy ABCP	76.5
AIG	112.5
Bear Stearns	29.5
(TSLF) Term Securities Lending Facility	225
Swap Lines	613
(MMIFF) Money Market Investor Funding Facility	540
Commercial Paper Funding Facility	257


(TARP) Treasury Asset Relief Program	700


Other:
Automakers	25
(FHA) Federal Housing Administration	300
Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac	350

Total	4284.5

Note: Figures as of Nov. 13, 2008

*References includ US National Archive, US Dept of Defense, US Bureau of Reclamation, Library of Congress, NASA, Panama Canal Authority, FDIC, Brittanica, WSJ, Time, CNN.com, and a number of other websites.

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Tags: 2008 emergency economic stability act, aig, bailout, bear stearns, fannie mae, federal housing administration, fha, freddie mac, taf, tarp, term auction facility, treasury asset relief program, WWII

2 Responses to “How much money have we, the taxpayers, already spent on government bailouts?”

Mandeville Says:
November 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
You use the term “taxpayer” as if we actually get invoiced for something, and almost half the US people aren’t even taxpayers anyway. Everyone pays for the waste you describe through inflation of the currency. It is only a myth that the poor aren’t paying.

If we lived in the type of society you like then your opinions wouldn’t matter and you probably wouldn’t be able to profit from them.

I love all the bailouts. This keeps the people in their places. Fewer people will be economically able to potentially compete with me at what I do. I don’t make money in any way related to politics but having an unbridled capitalistic system would make competition unbearable. I say give the people the crumbs they beg for. Let them win. Let them feel vindicated and poltically relevant, etc.

Be careful for what you wish.
Ferrari » Blog Archive » What I kind of business can I do to earn a lamborghini or ferrari? Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 5:05 am
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