Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes

Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes

www.bloomberg.com

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged to provide up to $5.7 trillion more if needed. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps. The Senate is to vote early this week on a stimulus package totaling at least $780 billion that President Barack Obama says is needed to avert a deeper recession. That measure would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.

(visit the link for the full news article)

$9.7 TRILLION!!

What is the world coming to? Unfortunately, this money will probably come from selling US Treasury Securities to unfriendly countries.

What can we do?

Is it too late?

This amount of money is mindblowing! In fact, it is so huge that it doesn't even sound like we are talking about money anymore, but rather some obscure thing like 'widgets'.

www.bloomberg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This number is so big that it becomes almost impossible to discuss. If you try to talk about how it is broken down it becomes nitpicking. If you ask how they ever came up with this number, the answer is because it's such a big problem it needs an equally big solution. Okay, so why not a bipartisan effort to create the package instead of pelosi, reid and the president-elect (who claimed to be working on it from the minute he was elected) doing it behind closed doors, and we are told that it's an emergency and needs quick action, no time for wrangling. If you ask if it will actually be effective, the answer is not doing it is bound to be disastrous. Every avenue of discussion is dead-ended with a non-answer

We can't possibly pay off this debt, if it is debt rather than simply printing money. I can't figure out how they dare to do this. It seems beyond insane. It feels like a declaration of war against everyone who has worked and saved and tried to get ahead by living within their means and planning for the future because it rewards the opposite behavior. In fact I don't actually see how any normal business can compete with the ones who get free money, though I'm sure the experts could explain or at least confuse my question away.

When this doesn't work, will they do it again? Will it have to be even bigger? There isn't even any way to know if it is working. I'd say it's a coup except that the government is the one doing it so who's overthrowing what. I don't honestly know how the citizens of this country fit into the picture except to be expected to pay and pay and pay and pay for this.

Oh Jesus....Our risk just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Next week it will be all of 2007 GDP on the table...And they will spend it trying to destroy the dollar as they are...Bunch of #ing criminals.

China pretty much owns us.
It's looking pretty grim isn't it?

And Saudi Arabia, and Japan, and the EU.

We owe every body. And it won't stop there.

Well realistically people, if we look at home the markets are doing and how they are projected to be going in a few months time. Were pretty much looking at an economic crash with the US dollar being virtually useless by the end of 2010.

Now if that does happen, it won't matter how much taxpayer money was put into that, because it's all gonna be gone in a wave of financial collapse.

I wouln't be so worried about it really, the more money they borrow, the more money they throw at they're problems, the bigger the problem will become, until if falls down all around them .

So be happy, it'll settle iself in the next couple of decades.

~Keeper

reply to post by emsed1

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged to provide up to $5.7 trillion more if needed.


This isn't true it hasn't been 3 trillion in over two years; it was 2.7 trillion from Sept to Oct of 2008 alone.
They (Fed Reserve) have since refused to make the actual numbers public! There has not been a reporting of the monies since they signed in the TARP bill and actually handed out monies. The Federal Reserve and all the crooks associated with the bill have stated that they don't have to report it as the TARP bill said they weren't required to.
So NO ONE KNOWS exactly how high this number already is or has gotten. Bloomberg is pulling numbers out of thin air based on LAST YEARS data prior to the signing of the TARP.
There are over a dozen programs now that have been running for OVER two years. The TARP is the one that was made public due to the immense size of it etc. It was nothing more than a fear tactic to get what they wanted.
The other programs that have been in effect since before the TARP add up to far more than the TARP and the programs they are trying to pull past us now!
This isn't just some disgusting thievery happening; it is the literal take over of our country and the world by those holding the money card. There is no other reason for them to have done this as the central banks of the world have continuously clamped down on everything they have and have been given. Repeatedly claiming to have NO MONEY, when in truth they are the ONLY ones with the money!
They have horded the money and are holding all the countries of the world ransom with it. When people really stop and start to use their heads as to how big this thing is getting the craps gonna hit the fan in ways you can't even begin to imagine. This by far and wide is what they want. Because when that happens, they will be able to get anyone and everyone to do WHAT EVER they want just to make it STOP.
Many people I know who have inside information on all of this garbage have said that they are planning on pulling the rug out from under us by the 2nd or 3rd week of this month. I think they are well behind on all of their plans as most of the people who where put on alert to be ready for "massive civil unrest" by Feb 1st are still waiting for their orders. And frankly no one has freaked out yet. Why people can't see what is being done is beyond me and I can't even fathom how people are going to react if they figure it out at all.

[edit on 9-2-2009 by xoxo stacie]

All this simply means is that for the next 20 or more generations of every taxpaying citizen, they will be paying on that bill.

Isnt it lovely that your elected officials care about you and your future generations?!!

Perhaps a flood of letters to these elected ones is warranted.



Cheers!!!!

Considering the risk of borrowing this much money, is the risk of waiting to see if the market corrects itself really that much greater? The bank bailouts were meant to fix the underlying problems so why not wait to see what the effect of that was before spending more on programs that are even less likely to have a positive long term effect then the bank bailouts.

There will be some short term job creation from the stimulus but unless the work created can support itself without government funding it's obviously not sustainable because the US government is already out of cash and can't borrow forever. For example I could borrow 100k and pay myself 50k a year but unless I'm doing something that will generate 100k and pay for the interest I haven't actually increased my wealth. Even if I were to generate 100k and pay the interest on it I would only be breaking even. So while I'm sure the stimulus will create jobs will it really create wealth? Many government jobs aren't the most efficient wealth creators and if the government is creating work just for the sake of creating work I imagine it would be even worse then usual.

My word... There must be a way we at ATS (or at least I) can think of a way to get a cut of this!

Might as well use their corrupt, rediculous, system - against them!

Originally posted by TruthMagnet
My word... There must be a way we at ATS (or at least I) can think of a way to get a cut of this!

Might as well use their corrupt, rediculous, system - against them!

I read in one of the gold columns that this amount is enough to give every person on Earth $1,400
OR
it would pay off 90% of US mortgages.

It's disgusting.

Honestly it is almost as if they are hedging thier bets on WW3 and praying that we come out on top. If China, Russia, and several ME countries are obliterated...don't have to pay them back do we?

reply to post by emsed1


My dear this is the most unconstitutional bill and right up nothing more than a rape of the American tax payer.

but as usual we just bend over and take it.

The United States Government and almost all of it's politicians are gigantic leeches sucking the people of this country dry.

And guess what, it's only going to get worse.

Let's just keep piling on to that debt!

We'll fix the problem for sure!

(pasted from similar thread)

Believe me when I say I can't believe I'm defending TARP, and defend is not the word exactly, but at least with TARP it involved mortgages that mostly will eventually get paid off. The theory was that we would get most of that money back with possibly some profit. This may be a pipe dream but it least was a plan. The new Stimuli (multiple stimulus plans) have no such redemptionplan. They are simply spending. Though Obama's big package is separate from the new, upcoming bailouts. They actually throw good money after bad, rewarding the worst business practices.

I don't think people have just accepted it. Many of us, me included, have written multiple letters to elected officials but it does no good. It's all partisan now. The democrats will support the party plan and even the republicans are getting bullied into passing stuff by the "well if disaster happens it's your fault!" argument.

I read somewhere that all money generated from income tax in one year is enough to pay INTEREST on the current debt. That's before this all started. So each year the debt will grow hugely even if we don't spend any more, just like credit card interest.

It's clear to me at least that this is NOT a plan to redistribute the wealth to everyone equally, which is what was implied during the campaign. It's to redistribute it to a smaller number of people even than now.

On the other hand, many people still do have jobs. The internet still works. We have electricity and water and food, schools, medical care, housing. Will the government with its solutions bring all these down too?

Transparency = admit the mistake, apologize, do what you want
High Ethical Bar = pay taxes when appointed to cabinet level office
Change = new thugs for old thugs
Get Input from Citizens = listen to people, then ignore and do what you want

What's geithner up to? He's supposed to be the brilliant one who alone can save us from ruin. Does anybody know what he is going to propose?

The bail out to the financial system were not used for the mortgage problem they used it for other reasons, even Paulson came up with his smug face and defended the financial institutions for not using the money to buy the bad debt and then asked for more money to correct its failure when rewarding banks with the first tarp money for incompetence.

Now the government wants to come out with more money to start buying out the bad paper now the problem is that this is more than just 700 billion dollars this about trillions of dollars of hidden bad paper now.

reply to post by marg6043


right. I forgot. They used it to do things like buy foreign banks. I must admit that the banking industry is beyond me. I understand bank to consumer stuff but not bank to bank and IMF and the Fed. That is so convoluted they can manipulate anything.

There is another angle to this. In the past, when things get bad then after awhile they improve. That will probably happen this time too. Except for that toxic debt. Uness there is a way to cancel that it will be never be repaid, which means which every government is in power can go along with some things and refuse others on the basis of needing to pay off the debt. It really is the ultimate unarguable power. That's the best case scenario. I don't know what the worst case scenario is.

There are plenty of people out there who say the situation is not nearly as bad as obama is making it out to be, that he is saying this to serve his own purpose, namely that when things improve he can claim credit for it and become legendary.

The banks in their greedisness don't want to sell the bad debt to the government until is can be profitable for them.

So they are holding to it, even if it means keeping the economy down the hill when they can not give out credit or loans.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was originally conceived and sold to Congress as a means of helping American families. After its implementation, TARP was immediately used to bail out financial institutions on Wall Street with the hope that the benefits would “trickle down” to the rest of the population. The Treasury put roughly $254 billion into financial institutions in exchange for preferred shares and other assets. If all the dealings were fair and balanced this would result in the Treasury holding at least $254 billion worth of institutional assets which it could either liquidate or hold until they appreciated in value. However, the Treasury did not get a full return on its investments. In exchange for $254 billion in borrowed taxpayer money, the Treasury received approximately $176 billion in assets. There is absolutely no explanation as to the whereabouts of the remaining $78 billion.


The COP did not draw any conclusions about the missing money, but Elizabeth Warren – who is heading the panel – went so far as to say that the Treasury had been less than “candid” about the subject. Warren’s statement was given before the Senate Banking Committee during a hearing on Thursday.

www.economyincrisis.org...