$23,700,000,000,000.00
Tags: Government Bail Outs, Tax and Spend Liberalism.
Click here to get Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan.
That is what TARP might cost us:
Some numbers are so large they simply become incomprehensible.
Remember when costs of the bailout were projected to be $0.5 Trillion, then $1 Trillion, then $3 Trillion.
Now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program says U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion.
U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released today.
“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
And if anyone is wondering why the financial institutions showed a profit this past quarter which is making Obamaniacs go nuts thinking there’s a recovery going on – well, when you dump that much money in to an industry, if you don’t show a profit then you’re pretty darned stupid. Give me a billion dollars next week and I’ll show you that Noonan, Inc. had increased profits on a grand scale. Now, the liberal/socialist theory here is that now that the banks have all this cash they’ll start to lend and otherwise invest it and, presto!, we’ll have an economic recovery. This isn’t just incorrect, its mind-bogglingly stupidly wrong, wrong, WRONG!
The money the banks got came out of some other part of the economy – what the Obama gives with one hands, the Obama takes with the other. We’d be lucky if it were a wash, but given the higher interest we’re going to have to pay on debt and the depreciation of our currency, we’re in for quite a large loss on the deal. Obama can pump up this bubble for a quarter or two, but eventually the bill has to be paid – and if we don’t find several trillion dollars under the White House mattress, it will have to be paid in lost jobs, lower wages, higher taxes, higher interest rate and inflation.
Welcome back, Carterism.
Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
22 Responses to “$23,700,000,000,000.00”
Caucus of Corruption
Just a reminder. Tarp is a Bush program.
Casper,
Bush isn’t President. Obama is. Its now Obama’s program.
Way to take responsibility.
Casper,
If you like, I’ll take personal responsibility for all TARP effects up to January 20th, 2009. After that, its all Barry’s.
Mark,
I’m glad to see you are at least taking responsibility for some of the mess Bush left.
Casper,
I find it hard to believe you know how to tie your shoes in the morning. If you’ll remember, and senility hasn’t set in entirely, ALL CONSERVATIVES excoriated Bush over TARP and implored him not to do it. It was the RINO’s & liberals that supported him on that.
But I also find it interesting that instead of being outraged at the growing debt fiasco, you instead find joy in faulting a republican.
I hate liberals and hope to strangle the life out of that mindset.
I’m glad to see you are at least taking responsibility – casper
And furthermore, I don’t give a flying F&^K what you’re happy about, and I expect Mark feels the same. You couldn’t think your way out of a paperbag.
Wouldn’t you think that the idiot in the white house would release the bad news if he could blame it on Bush? Evidently, Obama is not as brain dead as Casper. Go figure.
Upon taking office, President Obama proclaimed that “transparency will be the touchstone of my administration.” Six months later, we learn (via AP) that Obama has decided to put off the annual mid-summer budget update from mid-July, when it usually is released, to mid-August. Apparently, as AP suggests, the White House wants to delay the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
You and the article are confusing the fed and other programs with tarp. 350 billion of tarp was spent under Bush, and 350 billion under Obama. They deserve equal blame. FDIC insurance and Fannie Mae are New Deal programs with nearly bipartisan support. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship of the FHFA(fully nationalized) under Bush, and bought trillions in assets under Bush. The fed put 8.5 trillion dollars into banks under Bush. I also remember almost all republicans during the primaries calling Ron Paul a wacko when he spoke about the fed and the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The article also fails to take into account large bailout banks recieve by lowering the interest rate, which depreciates the value of people’s savings and benifits the banks. Sorry but you’re blaming a bipartisan but mostly republican problem on Obama.
I will remind you that Barney Frank took control of the GSE’s in 2007, and since, continued to encourage buying MBS’s, and express confidence in their stability despite Bush’s skepticism. I will also remind you that FHA loans are still widely available to people with FICO scores as low as 580 with only 3.5% down.
Secondly, read the link to gain a little more perspective on the 8 trillion figure you threw out.
http://baselinescenario.com/2008/11/26/78-trillion-and-counting/
Finally Ron Paul is a bit of a conspiracy nut and this is now Obama’s economy.
I’m aware of the fact that this is loaned money, obviously all the banks will not all go to 0, the taxpayers are not on the hook for the full amount.
Also you’re trying to talk about what caused our current problem or something with your statement about Barney Frank, I and the article are talking about putting trillion of dollars in loans behind failing institutions, these are 2 different issues, apples and oranges. But in 2008 under Paulson, a Bush apointee, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were garaunteed 5 trillion in loans.
Also about Ron Paul, he was heavily criticized by republicans for opposing the trillions of dollars in loans from the fed and the treasury. But he was one of the very few republicans crititcal of the bailouts. I’m not saying anything about Ron Paul, I’m talking about the republicans that claimed all these loans where necessary when they where given out by republican apointees, and are now critical and somehow trying to put the blame on Obama, when it was republican apointees that made them.
My whole point of my post is that the article and post by Mark is extremely dishonest to somehow say that this is Obama’s doing. Most of this money was loaned out under by republican apointees.
If you will remember correctly, which I don’t think you will. CONSERVATIVE groups were not supportive of this effort by Paulsen and Bush.
But I don’t suppose that fact fits with your template.
“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” from the original $700 billion (USD, of course). So yeah, conservatives will continue to be upset at the mistake Bush made in being ramrodded into a poorly thought-out effort to bail out banking, but let’s remember, it started off as 700 billion, not 3 trillion or 23 trillion. How and when did it balloon from less than a trillion to the subsequent numbers?
Casper, we have ALWAYS taken responsibilty for GOP mistakes. You cannot have missed this. But we do refuse to let the Dems pin this entire debt fiasco on conservatives just because Bush started it. What about the mantra of “change”? If you don’t like the original Bush plan, change it. But if you continue it, expand upon it, multiply it, then you have no right to whine about INHERITING this big debt, much less blame it on Republicans.
You may have had your collective heads in the sand while the Dems were being stampeded into spending trillions of dollars (USD) on Obama schemes, with fewer than six hours to read a thousand or so pages, but we were there, and we were paying attention. If the Democratic Congress had not just passed bills to spend trillions, you might have a leg to stand on, but as it is, this IS Obama’s debt.
Good. That means that the worst case, Armageddon scenario has gotten far, far better. Remember, when the CDS industry alone went up in smoke, it took some $40 trillion with it, and that’s not even mentioning all the other industries.
Then why did they show losses for the first two of the three quarters they’ve been receiving money?
Remember that while Reagan and Carter’s fiscal policies were dramatically different, the most important parts of their economic policies were identical. In order to deal with stagflation, Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Volcker succeeded at ending stagflation, but in doing so caused a severe recession. Reagan not only took no action against Volcker, and not only reappointed him in 83, he even included his policies as one of the four pillars of Reaganomics. If you look at the other three pillars, you see that Reagan didn’t actually do one of them (cut government spending), and followed in Carter’s footsteps in another (deregulation). Thus, with the exception of taxes, Reaganomics = Carterism.
On December 19, 2008, President Bush used his executive authority to declare that TARP funds may be spent on any program he personally deems necessary to avert the financial crisis, and declared Section 102 (dictating that it was specifically designed to rescue “financial institutions” ) to be nonbinding.
Bush screwed all of us, Democrat and Republican alike, on his way out the door. Obama will NEVER simply walk away from any power Bush invoked. You can thank Bush and Cheney for making Obama the most powerful unitary executive president the world has ever known.
Thanks a lot.
anarchist,
Its all Obama and his Democrats, now – if they are the wonderful battlers for the Common Man blah blah blah they can swiftly and without the least bit of GOP objection do away with or modify TARP. We had responsibility until January 20th – we have no responsibility at all, now.
Sergei,
Nice try at a re-write of history – and where did you get the $40 trillion figure from?
cluster, tell me where I wrote the word conservative. Trust me, I wouldn’t confuse the republicans of today with conservatives.
So Mark, what do you suggest, take back all these loans? The banks allready loaned the money out, we couldn’t get it back if we wanted. We could try to take it back from all the buisnesses they loaned it too, but I’m sure that would cause a massive catastrophe, and generate huge losses. The only thing to do now is sit back and hope we get a decent percent of it back. Unfortunately the way the government works, this thing will probably never go away(thanks to the republicans who created it).
I don’t have any hope at all that Obama will work to un-nationalize the credit markets. I agree 100% with bozo’s last comment. But this is exactly the problem, “free market” and “small government” to republicans now means spend, socialize, tax cuts and war, which is just an irresponsible version of the democrats spend, socialize and tax. This is the kind of stuff that makes me no longer support the republican party, 90% of the republicans in washington I would not consider conservative. I know you’re not going to ever vote democrat, and you stiff feel attached to your party, so if you want to help to fix the problem you need to take the blame to YOUR party, responsible to YOU, it’s voter.
still feel, not stiff feel
=)
Anarchist,
I’m going to be taking personal responsibility for my party – I’m going to put my self on the line. I’m doing this because the GOP is the party of the people, if the people are to have a party, at all. I’ve signed on for the cruise and I won’t abandon ship unless it completely sinks underneath me.
Both parties are in disastrous condition with the Democrats’ collapse masked by the fact that they happen to hold the levers of power, for the moment. Typical of the Elites’ divorce from reality is that both sides don’t understand the TEA Party movement – the Democrats think its a GOP “astro-turf” effort, while the DC GOPers think its worthless because its not “astro-turf” (and, therefor, not under their control).
A political revolution is brewing in America – the GOP will, pro-tempore, benefit from this as they will not be the Democrats in 2010, but in the long run only those who will speak to the real desires of the people will win. I intend to be one of those people – and I intend to help the GOP because the positive rather than negative beneficiary of this upsurge of anti-government sentiment. I think I can assist in bringing together the Evangelical base of the GOP with the business-minded (as opposed to “corporate leech”) Independents fused with those elements of the Democrat party who very much want to provide social programs, but don’t want this bonanza of hackery known as Obamunism. A grand coalition of people who don’t want the kiddies taught how to use condoms but who want to be able to work for themselves and their families but who also know that the test of a society is in a decent provision for the poor. I think this is 60% or better of the electorate.
don’t want the kiddies taught how to use condoms
Funny you should mention that, as the tragic failure of abstinence-only “education” has been demonstrated for the umpteenth time:
Are you still going to try to pretend that failure is success? Smart money’s on “yes.”
My father, who was right in the thick of it as it all went down.