Report: Wall Street Bailout Cost Taxpayers $4.6 Trillion

[BailoutBill]

New Tally Focuses on Expansive Role of Federal Reserve in Wall Street Bailout
CMD Releases Comprehensive Bailout Tally, $4.6 Trillion Spent on the Bailout to Date

by Mary Bottari
Tally Shows That the Federal Reserve Is The Real Source of Bailout Funds

Today, the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released an assessment of the total cost to taxpayers of the Wall Street bailout. CMD concludes that multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008. Of that, $2 trillion is still outstanding.

CMD's assessment demonstrates that while the press has focused its attention on the $700 billion TARP bill passed by Congress, the Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans amounting to $3.8 trillion.

Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for these loans, sparking the Bloomberg News lawsuit covered earlier. CMD also concludes that the bailout is far from over as the government has active programs authorized to cost up to $2.9 trillion and still has $2 trillion in outstanding investments and loans.

Learn more about the 35 programs included in the CMD tally by visiting our Total Wall Street Bailout Cost Table, which contains links to pages on each bailout program with details including the current balance sheet for each program.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/01-8

Total Wall Street Bailout Cost

The Wall Street Bailout Cost table is produced and updated monthly by the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes this website, SourceWatch. The total is reflected on the Financial Crisis Tracker widget which you can download here. This calculation was peer-reviewed by economists at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. This table represents a unique accounting of actual funds disbursed. Our total includes major programs of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies to assist the financial sector and institutions that had a role in the crisis. It does not include stimulus funds, unemployment, student loans, auto bailout and other initiatives to create jobs or support citizens. See Glossary of terms below. Learn more at our Financial Crisis Tracker page on Sourcewatch.

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Total_Wall_Street_Bailout_Cost

[no_hypocrisy]

1. That really took away my breath. $4.6 TRILLION!

[Statistical]

2. The cost of a loan is not the amount loaned.

Govt has ability to borrow money so any money in the bailout came from govt borrowing (or printing for portion financed by fed).
Thus the COST of the loan is the interest (carrying) costs plus any losses minus any fees/interest collected from the banks.

To say the cost is $4.6 trillion is disingenuous as best.

The program involved $4.6 trillion. The cost will be much lower (but still too much).
Once cost is determined the banks should be taxed to recoup that cost.