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The Greatest Swindle: $700 Billion to $12 Trillion Bailout

thenation.com — That $700 billion bailout has since grown into a more than $12 trillion commitment by the US government and the Federal Reserve.

Who dugg this? Made popular May 28, 2009

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  • deema1, on 05/28/2009, -26/+79But, but, but...Obama inherited this economy.

    This epic spending spree was pitched as being the only thing that could save the economy. Six months later and more dollars than all other presidents combined we are not only no better off, but we're now in unfathomable debt, on the verge of a credit ratings downgrade, with a completely worthless dollar and hyperinflation inevitable. Higher taxes are coming down the pike for everyone and commodities are starting to creep up in price, meaning everything is going to cost more. We've wasted $50b+ in giving auto companies an extra six months of life to prove what smart people like me were saying was inevitable back in the fall. Housing prices continue to fall and will never return to the insane levels of the past several years, catching citizens in a debt trap. Employment is already well into the double digits if you use actual data and stop allowing the government to fudge the numbers. Companies are going bankrupt, cities are going bankrupt, municipalities are going bankrupt, and states are going bankrupt.

    $12 trillion has accomplished nothing other turning a problem isolated to a few industries into a country-wide epidemic. You may think this was necessary, but letting the failures fail would have put us on the path to recovery. This assures our doom. Never let politicians and their "economists" who can't succeed in business dictate spending and policy. You just exacerbate the problem.
  • BorsKaegel, on 05/27/2009, -16/+65And we don't even get the damn courtesy of a reach around...
  • ScreenRant, on 05/27/2009, -17/+59Disgusting, damaging and retarded on an epic scale is what it is.
  • dmelo, on 05/28/2009, -16/+47Its not about left or right. Its about freedom or enslavement.
  • ironhide, on 05/28/2009, -8/+38Nice to see the power users weren't affected by shouts going away.
  • dmelo, on 05/28/2009, -8/+34The first bail out was in october(bush). and both mccain and obama were for it. They are all playing for the same team. Quit making it a political party issue.
  • Bicep, on 05/28/2009, -7/+29I'd have been happier if they would have just handed everyone of us $250K instead of giving it to banks. Just make us promise not to spend it all at once or something...
  • SemiSarcastic, on 05/28/2009, -7/+27Can't we just solve these problems the old fashion way by taking out guns and shooting each other?
  • prrp, on 05/28/2009, -7/+25Well, I voted for the only candidate that even talked about the seriousness of the issue.... actually, Paul is pretty much the only one who even mentioned it.
  • e1evene1even, on 05/28/2009, -2/+19Ludwig Von Mises
  • Herolint, on 05/28/2009, -10/+27No, but the trillion dollars that Obama has already blown did.
  • quirkopatra, on 05/28/2009, -9/+24Why, are left-wing people pro-slavery?
  • darkened, on 05/28/2009, -1/+16No, actually IT IS THE BANKERS PRINTING THE MONEY. First they print it with fractional reserve lending, second they print it with their privately ran corporation known as the Federal Reserve that submits to not meaningful public oversight in it's 80+ years of existence.

    Support Audit the Fed Act HR1207!!
  • ghatid, on 05/28/2009, -2/+16@Herolint Why were you dugg down? I guess because you should have said trillion(s) of dollars...but overall, Obama's spending spree was overnight. It happened so fast. Basically, the newspapers said 700 billion, then another 1.1 billion, and another 1.3 billion...something like that.Then I lost count, but it was all very fast.
  • minoss, on 05/28/2009, -10/+24Or just let them fail. It isn't the bankers printing up the $12 trillion. It's the government.

    The Federal Reserve, which is unsurprisingly composed of many prior big bank executives, has a long standing policy of not letting big banks fail. They tell us it would bring down the entire economy! Who would lend?!? Small business would all go under! And other lies and scare tactics to make us sign off on them giving trillions to their friends at the cost of the tax payer.
  • arplayer2k, on 05/28/2009, -9/+22If America had the intellect to listen to people like Ron Paul, Marc Faber, and a few others who were the minorities against this bailout, we might be seeing a better future.
  • ghatid, on 05/28/2009, -3/+15Digg users don't like it when you compare Democrats to Republicans. They think the two parties are very different.
  • zephalim, on 05/28/2009, -0/+12Support H.R. 1207! Write your Congressman and audit the Federal Reserve!
  • pahomi, on 05/28/2009, -9/+21I love Americans, i really do...I have the pleasure of working with you people every day and i love the fact that you are so open minded and outgoing. But i have to say that the American Government is the biggest threat to this world...even to it's own people. It's pure evil!!
  • silvern88, on 05/28/2009, -2/+14No *****. =\
  • airfabio, on 05/28/2009, -9/+21This article is pretty silly.

    $12T is the number if all of Fed and Treasury facilities are fully used.

    Current number is around $4T and most of that is TARP, stimulus and risk free items like GSE MBS purchases, currency swaps with other central banks and very short term loans backed by collateral.
  • Jassman, on 05/28/2009, -27/+38Arrest the bankers, especially the international bankers who are controlling/destroying the world, or we're all *****.

    Stop the New World Order.
  • PrometheusBorn, on 05/28/2009, -7/+18I agree with most of what you said.... however, what I get tired of hearing these days seems to imply that we weren't already in unfathomable debt for many years now.

    Trillions of dollars of debt is unfathomable, but it didn't happen overnight.
  • darkened, on 05/28/2009, -1/+11They can't, because it never worked before, it won't work now, and will never work. Keynesian economics fail every single time when money is created at the rates we are creating it.
  • AgeofMastery, on 05/28/2009, -2/+12No, The Onion is closer to reality than these idiots
  • ghatid, on 05/28/2009, -1/+10I guess now is as good of a time as any to teach you that in English, though it sounds like we say "it should of" we are actually saying "it should have". Also, instead of "went" you should use "gone" or something of that nature. So the correct sentence would be, "I know, most of it should have gone to Iraq".
  • mcbutt, on 05/28/2009, -8/+17Change, ***** yeah!
  • Valyn, on 05/28/2009, -2/+10***** 2012. Voting for a new president wont do *****. This garbage is going to keep happening until the country is completely ruined. When the average retarded (believes cable news) American citizen finally understands how bad it is. There is going to be a massive revolution against the current government, President AND Congress AND local government as well. I only hope it does not get too violent.
  • kemp34, on 05/28/2009, -0/+8How about just left to the people who earned it in the first place??
  • Valyn, on 05/28/2009, -3/+11Bailout has reached 12 Trillion.

    US GDP: 13.84 Trillion
    According to http://flagcounter.com/factbook/us

    How the ***** can we perform a bailout that is barely short of our ENTIRE GDP? ***** *****. I honestly don't know why people are not rioting outside the White House or Congress.
  • deema1, on 05/28/2009, -8/+16You are absolutely correct. I'm not saying that this is a new problem. I'm saying that the degree of this problem has exceeded financial comprehension under the new administration. It has been bad for decades and grew larger under Bush. I am not denying that fact. Geniuses like David Walker have been talking about this problem for years.

    However, the going-out-of-business-spending-spree that has taken place the past eight months has been staggering and unprecedented. More has been spent in eight months than all other presidents combined. That's just capitulation. That is knowing there is no escape so spend on what you can while you can.

    You can't lift yourself off the ground by standing in a bucket and pulling the rope, and that's exactly what's happening here with all this debt.

    These politicians and economists are stupid, negligent, incompetent, saboteurs or a combination of the four. Any way you look at it, we deserve better.
  • dazparkour, on 05/28/2009, -0/+8Whether he meant it or not - Xihix hit the nail on the head - it's not about which side makes the rules, it's that the rules are always good for them and ***** for us.
  • bcronos, on 05/28/2009, -11/+19Change you can believe in! Thanks Obamanuts!
  • TINZUSA, on 05/28/2009, -2/+10There was a time when I explained we were all fodder for the rich and I would be called paranoid. How happy I am to obtain evidence of my sanity.
  • Nickolassc, on 05/28/2009, -5/+13nicegeek, don't believe the false left-right paradigm, it's one government that uses partisanship and "us vs them" mentality to keep the people divided while we are being raped. True "right wingers" haven't had representation in the government in a very long time. Smaller federal government with more local control, non-fiat currencies, having the USA not be the world' police, etc...
  • cjw10, on 05/28/2009, -4/+12Liberals are a little sensitive when it comes to any sort of critique of their elected officials.
  • akphidelt, on 05/28/2009, -2/+10Why am I getting Dugg down? All I want to know is if any one knows how the $12 trillion bailout could work.
  • akphidelt, on 05/28/2009, -6/+13Have they given a single rationale explanation on how this can possibly be a good idea?
  • deema1, on 05/28/2009, -0/+7Read my other response and you'll see I say that Congress authorized $700B on Bush's watch. Both sides are complicit.

    However, I think it's important that people stop using this "inherited" nonsense. The point of this whole spending spree was to stave off the damage we're seeing right now and the agony that is still coming anyway. You can't have it both ways, where you claim your economic plan worked with every uptick in data but blame what you inherited when things worsen.
  • heythere1857, on 05/28/2009, -2/+9http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive ...

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&am ...

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/04/busi ...
    "Through April 30, the government has made commitments of about $12.2 trillion and spent $2.5 trillion..."

    The $12 trillion includes bailouts under Bush, Obama and money that is pledged but not yet spent in both bailouts.
  • Tubal22, on 05/28/2009, -3/+10It's pretty obvious washington took advantage of people's fear. This administration has spent more in the first 6 months than Bush spent on both wars in the last 8 years.

    We can't do anything about it. Remember when the representatives voted down the first bailout? A week later, we had another one. We have no say what they do.
  • Ocyris, on 05/28/2009, -2/+8"The American banking system became a libertarian dream, with Alan Greenspan vehemently opposing any regulation."

    The lack of regulation of government sponsored corporations (Freddie, Fannie, etc) and the loose monetary policy of the FED were a libertarian's worst nightmare hence the reason they were almost the only group that called the crisis in advance. These bank never would have made these loan if the government hadn't been backing them.

    Then we have regulations like FDIC which create moral hazards in banks. I mean when you put your money in the bank do you care what the bank does with it or do you just care about the yield, whether you can do online banking, what ATMs you can use and such? If the FDIC didn't exist then banks would be much more careful with our money because most people wouldn't accept much risk.
  • blipblopblip, on 05/28/2009, -0/+61) The treasury creates a nice piece of paper with however much they need written on it and gives it to the Fed

    2) The Fed gives them a Check/Cheque

    3) The treasury gives the cheque directly back to the Fed and a number pops up in the government's account.

    4) That "money" is then electronically transferred to whichever projects or people they want and then the banks receiving that "money" can lend out 90% of it or more to someone else, this process usually occurs up to about 28 times by which time the money supply expands by 90% of the amount the treasury asked for. Your slice of the pie sitting in your bank account becomes worth a smaller and smaller percentage of the big trillion dollar numbers in the Government's account until it's worth nothing.
  • apena89, on 05/28/2009, -2/+8"Go to sleep America, we have everything under control."
  • geekee, on 05/28/2009, -0/+6Somebody has to pay for the bubble sooner or later. Under Bush, Obama, and Bernanke those who pay will include:
    People not born yet (taxation without representation, BTW), and
    Anyone who is holding cash or earning a salary (inflation hits every consumer, no progressive system there to shield the poor)
  • Ocyris, on 05/28/2009, -4/+10actually once it gets through our fractional reserve banking system it'll multiply about 10 times
  • desync, on 05/28/2009, -10/+15Arm yourselves. A revolution is brewing against the plague of puppet politicians, corrupt laws and 'We the Corporation' governance.
  • loudnobnoxious, on 05/28/2009, -1/+6Yeah, the ***** who thinks he can spend an entire country out of debt.
  • kemp34, on 05/28/2009, -0/+4Keynesian = true wingnut
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