how big was the wall street bailout? this big:

[Hannah Bell]

The collapse of the U.S. housing bubble led directly to the largest industry bailout in U.S. history. While it will be many years yet before we can put a hard number to the amount of taxpayer dollars actually lost in the bailout, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has developed an assessment of the dollars disbursed in the bailout that graphically illustrates the extraordinary lengths to which the federal government has gone to bail out the financial sector...

CMD’s total for taxpayer dollars that have gone out the door to date: $4.7 trillion, with $2 trillion still outstanding as of June 2010.

This assessment of dollars disbursed demonstrates that the hotly contested $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (aka “TARP”) was only a small portion of the funds that the U.S. government rapidly deployed to aid the financial sector. Without Congressional discussion or debate, the Fed has provided the bulk of the money in the form of loans and purchases of toxic assets and other securities that may—or may not—be sellable, amounting to 80% of the $4.7 trillion.

And contrary to popular belief, the bailout continues unabated as the Fed pumps money into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, amounting to a $1.6 trillion “stealth” bailout. The full accounting for the various Fed programs is still murky, as the Fed has fought court battle after court battle to prevent the release of information regarding certain programs. Hopefully the unprecedented Federal Reserve audit provided for in the 2010 financial-reform package will finally shed light on these “Secrets of the Temple.”

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2010/0710bottari.html


To put that in perspective, the entire social security trust fund = $2.6 trillion, & that's 30 years plus worth of money.

[fogonthelake]

1. It is all so sickening.

[Make7]

2. Where does the money come from that the Federal Reserve loans out? ( n/t )

[Hannah Bell]

3. your labor.

[Make7]

9. Am I supposed to be sending them checks periodically?

By what mechanism is my labor turning into money for the Federal Reserve?
 

[Recursion]

12. Your labor makes enough goods and services that their increasing of the money supply...

...doesn't lead to a large amount of inflation.

[Make7]

17. Then why is the Consumer Price Index venturing into negative terrritory?

Shouldn't the substantial increase in the money supply be causing inflation? Or is there little to no inflation because the current production of goods and services have increased substantially to match the increase in money supply?
 

[Hannah Bell]

18. ...

[Recursion]

24. Because productivity has gone up way ahead of consumption

Simply having a bunch of rich people sitting on cash (which is what has happened) doesn't really do much to inflation. So we've had massive productivity increases lately with a pretty temperate money supply policy, and that money itself hasn't had any velocity lately (inflation is a function of money's "momentum", if you will, not just its amount).

[girl gone mad]

30. Because there hasn't been an increase in money supply

The "money multiplier" model is broken.

That should be everyone's first clue that the neo-classical, neo-liberal economic theory our government officials cling to is thoroughly flawed.

Money is created on the demand-side, not the supply-side.

[Recursion]

40. Well...

If we literally handed everyone in the US a million dollars, it's hard to imagine there would be no inflation.

Or do you mean inflation doesn't occur on the goods and services supply-side? (I had read that as the "money supply-side".) Then again. maybe there's an intrinsic demand for money, and $1,000,000 exceeds it, so handing out money below that level isn't inflationary (I think there needs to be a lot more handing out of money than there is, in general).

[Hannah Bell]

19. your labor = the future production that gives value to the expanded money supply.

you & all the other workers.

[Make7]

29. I guess I'm still not clear on the term "taxpayer dollars" as used in the OP.

That's why I asked the question in my first post.

In the opening post it states that "taxpayer dollars that have gone out the door to date: $4.7 trillion" yet "the Fed has provided the bulk of the money in the form of loans and purchases of toxic assets and other securities that may—or may not—be sellable, amounting to 80% of the $4.7 trillion."

When I hear the term "taxpayer dollars", it makes me think it is government money acquired through taxes. But the money that the Federal Reserve provided was not government funds from taxpayers, so it doesn't seem to make sense to say $4.7 trillion in taxpayer dollars if 80% of it isn't from taxpayers.

So I wondering how exactly that 80% that isn't taxpayer dollars personally costs me money. If for some reason I do not pay any Federal taxes, would any of the cost for this bailout money even affect me?
 

[girl gone mad]

32. Taxes don't actually fund spending at the federal level.

Taxes primarily serve to prevent widespread inflation by increasing demand for our fiat currency.

[Hydra]

5. The same place the derivitives came from

As Hannah said, you labor- or rather, your PROJECTED labor. They spin money out of nothing and expect you to pay it back later after you've earned it from them.

[Hannah Bell]

6. yes, *projected*. important addition, thanks.

[Lagomorph]

39. A lot of it simply disappears...

...when they buy negative assets. They don't actually print up all that money and send it out, it's numbers that get moved around. The bank gets a positive number, the tax payers get a negative one. The books are balanced, but the taxpayers have a lot of IOU's to pay off.

[Turborama]

4. K&R Thanks for the very informative graphic & info

I wonder how long it will take to recover the remaining $2 trillion.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Bush and Rove engineered this one to be a big fat GOP slush fund,.

Note how no one at DU is paying attention to the big story about how banksters are spending bailout money on Republicans.

Once the fuss dies down in a day or two, I am going to ressurect this one.

[Luminous Animal]

8. Kick.

[Greyhound]

10. And the administration is frustrated with "the left"...

tough shit. I just hope the election turns out better than it looks right now.

[liberalla]

11. Wow. I'm going to save this for tomorrow when I'm more awake.

:wow: Thanks for posting this...

[LynzM]

13. This is Crazy looking...

It manages to make the war funds look *small*.... oy.

[blindpig]

14. The Business of America is Business

It sure as hell ain't the welfare of it's citizens.

[amborin]

15. Robert Reich recently wrote why TARP was a failure, so did Dean Baker

[Hannah Bell]

16. kr

remember when the cat food commission makes its recs

[Octafish]

20. How can Tim Geithner sleep at night?

Especially when corruption in public office is treason. Guess that's when Holder would say serving as chair of the NY Fed is really a private sector job. Sure seems to pay like one.

[Ignis]

25. Good thing we don't actually prosecute treason anymore.

Well, not for the important people, of course!

[Starry Messenger]

21. Austerity my ass.

Jesus, if they'd pumped that into schools, communities and other things in the commons...I don't even want to think about it. This makes me sick.

[Lorien]

22. But remember; they'll pay it back. 0.66 cents worth of stock on every dollar!

What a deal!!! :sarcasm: < (as if it were needed).

[Poboy]

23. Okay, so its pretty clear that we are all SUCKERS.

We've also shown we'll take just about anything.

I predict much more pain. MUCH more.
The criminals are running our government, and NO ONE will stop them.

[maryf]

26. K&Rnt

[amborin]

27. $7.2 trillion, according to this:

[progressoid]

28. Makes me ill.

[Snazzy]

31. good thing we held someone accountable

oh wait...

[girl gone mad]

33. What? You don't think Fabulous Fabrizio Tourre..

was the sole brain behind the entire operation?

[Snazzy]

35. so odd that I had to look him up

"He served excellent liquor", per:

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/topic/65634/

----

No more Campbell Apartment martinis for me. Damn, I thought I was tuned in.

[girl gone mad]

37. He was small time..

but this is probably the biggest fish we'll see fried.

eta: well, not even fried, really. Steamed? Sashimi-ed?

[Snazzy]

38. gently poached in a fine vintage

I could really take the whole fish thing and run with it, probably should. I'm losing the class war quick.

[kenny blankenship]

34. Yeah, remember all those trials with the fatcat banksters & hedgies being frogmarched into court

snarling and spitting at the cameras and judge? That was a raw spectacle for the nation to witness, and little tawdry on all sides. But hopefully the next generation, and the one still in power, all learned from it that crime doesn't pay.

Oh right, that's something that happened in one of my dreams.

[Snazzy]

36. wow same dream

Weird weird weird.

And so wrong. I feel guilty for even dreaming it--let us send a little more tax-payer funded assistance so they don't feel "dirty" and know that they have our unconditional love. I got the mighty Schum's on speed-dial, so just hit my pay pal if you're with me.

[BzaDem]

41. That is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the size of the bailouts.

You are counting loans and purchases of toxic assets as part of the bailout, dollar per dollar. That doesn't even remotely resemble reality.

If you were actually interested in an accurate count, you would only be able to count the money the Fed LOSES on loans (not ALL loans), and the amount the toxic asset purchases were overvalued (not the ENTIRE pool of toxic asset purchase prices).

You are essentially assuming all loans will fail and all toxic assets are valued at 0, and that is an assumption completely divorced from reality.

[tabasco]

42. Of course it is.

But facts and common sense don't matter to the "in crowd."

[Fumesucker]

43. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours