The Real Cost of the Bailout: $7.6 Trillion Are We Getting Our Money's Worth?

[Better Believe It]

November 26, 2008
Are We Getting Our Money's Worth?
The Real Cost of the Bailout
By KEVIN ZEESE

$7.6 trillion.

That is what Bloomberg reports has been committed on behalf of the American taxpayer to bailout America’s finance system. This includes spending by the Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC.

- The amount is equal to half the value of everything produced in the United States last year.

- It is $24,000 for every man, woman and child in America, that is nearly $100,000 for a family of four.

- It's nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- It is enough money to pay off more than half the country's mortgages, but bankruptcies have continued despite the bailout.

All of this money and yet foreclosures, bankruptcy and unemployment are all up; the stock market, consumer spending and housing prices are down. Pouring tax dollars into banks is not working.

We don’t know where the bottom is yet, see no evidence that the bailout is working and already, as Barry Ritholtz, author of "Bailout Nation," points out, the bailout has cost more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget – COMBINED! In fact, the bailout is almost double:

- Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

- Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

- Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

- S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

- Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

- The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

- Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

-Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

- NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

You’d think for $7.7 trillion we’d get health care for all, tax relief or free college education! But Americans got none of that. Is this a wise use of tax dollars? Are there better ways to use this money? Will this trickle down approach work this time, even though it has failed in the past?

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese11262008.html

[truedelphi]

1. If your name is Paulson or Kashkari, you can bet your bottom you

Are getting a lot of your money's worth.

For the rest of us, not so much.

[msongs]

2. dems and repubs fleecing you and giving the money to their corporate masters lol nt

[tama]

6. Money is their tool

for destroying what is left of nature's beauty and lives of future generations. It's not crime. It's just mortal sin.

[Greyhound]

3. K&R

Trying to get some sense of scale is not easy, thanks.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. It's an expensive exercise of pissing in the wind. But, the politicians are "doing something".

Alas, we, and generations to come, will be paying for their CYA efforts.

[Romulox]

5. LOL at the one or two remaining flat-earthers calling these bailouts "investments". nt

[kentuck]

7. Thanks for that perspective.

Good job!

[Better Believe It]

8. Damn .... That's more money than I have in my bank account!