Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined
DON’T get out your calculator unless you’re comfortable with scientific notation, or your calculator has at least 15 digits in the display. The total is $4.3 trillion or $4,300,000,000,000.00 or 4.3 x 10E11 (4.3 times ten to the eleventh power).
The following video clip from the Nov. 25, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show demonstrates just how big this financial crisis is getting to be. The part of the 10 minute segment I want you to watch starts at about 2 minutes 40 seconds and runs about 1 minute 3 seconds to 3 minutes 43 seconds into the clip. If you’re not interested in the whole segment you can fast forward to that time and stop watching after it.
So, let’s review: the Bush bailout is costing us, the taxpayers, adjusted for inflation, meaning in today’s dollars, more than
- the Marshall Plan
- the Louisiana Purchase
- the Race to the Moon
- the Savings and Loan Crisis
- the Korean War
- the New Deal (the one from the Great Depression in the 1930′s)
- the Iraq War
- the Vietnam War
- the total lifetime budget of NASA
COMBINED.
Add all those costs up after adjusting them for inflation to today’s dollars and that’s what this bailout is costing us. Let that context sink in because it gets worse and it’s important to have somewhat of a grasp on the situation before we go on. Maybe it’s more like a realization about how little of a grasp we can get on it?
Now, realize that even more money has been committed to the financial crisis since the $4.3 trillion was calculated. The amount as of November 26, 2008 is $7.8 trillion. We’re only about $800 billion from doubling the cost of the above events (that would be $8.6 trillion). See the sources section below for a link to the new article. There is a big chart that explains the situation very well.
As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Trying to understand WTF is really going on,
Sherri
Other Sources:
Bailout Nation by Barry Ritholtz which will be coming out on January 15, 2009. Barry Ritholtz is CEO and director of equity research at FusionIQ.com, an online quantitative research firm. He regularly appears as an expert on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox, and PBS, and he is the author of the topranked financial blog, The Big Picture, hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “what the in-crowd knows”.
You can get your copy of the book here:
$7.8 Trillion Total Bailout Commitment
by Barry Ritholtz
The Big Picture, November 26, 2008
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/78-trillion-bailout/
[...] This is the story of my journey to debt freedom from the prison of high credit balances, obscene interest charges and fees, overwhelming minimum payments, legal judgments, writs of seizure and chapter 7 bankruptcy. …[Continue Reading] [...]
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[...] Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined the Marshall Plan; the Louisiana Purchase; the Race to the Moon; the Savings and Loan Crisis; the Korean War; the New Deal (the one from the Great Depression in the 1930’s); the Iraq War; the Vietnam War; the total lifetime budget of … [...]
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[...] Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined We’re only about $800 billion from doubling the cost of the above events (that would be $8.6 trillion). See the sources section below for a link to the new article. There is a big chart that explains the situation very well. … [...]
Pingback by what's a new scientific current event | HP.com HP United States | November 30, 2008
What frightens me is the huge debt load we are creating for future generations!
Comment by JW Thornhill | November 30, 2008
Sherri:
Should you even be posting on the public debt, hurricanes, Nickelodeon cartoons, the housing crisis, or any other topic outside of your own debt and specific efforts to pay it off?
It seems to me that every erg of energy you devote to something that does NOT pay off a personal bill or get you a real job, takes you further from where you need to be.
I suppose this comment won’t make it through moderation, either — not because it is rude or inflammatory, but simply because it is advice you just don’t want to hear or have others see that you received.
Comment by Wake Up | November 30, 2008
[...] Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined the Marshall Plan; the Louisiana Purchase; the Race to the Moon; the Savings and Loan Crisis; the Korean War; the New Deal (the one from the Great Depression in the 1930’s); the Iraq War; the Vietnam War; the total lifetime budget of … [...]
Pingback by cause of the korean war | Sun Microsystems | November 30, 2008
[...] Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined the Marshall Plan; the Louisiana Purchase; the Race to the Moon; the Savings and Loan Crisis; the Korean War; the New Deal (the one from the Great Depression in the 1930’s); the Iraq War; the Vietnam War; the total lifetime budget of … [...]
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And it is still not enough!
Comment by aran | November 30, 2008
[...] Bailout Compared to 9 Other Events Combined the Marshall Plan; the Louisiana Purchase; the Race to the Moon; the Savings and Loan Crisis; the Korean War; the New Deal (the one from the Great Depression in the 1930’s); the Iraq War; the Vietnam War; the total lifetime budget of … [...]
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@ JW Thornhill and aran, it scares me, too, that the bailout still isn’t enough, that there will certainly be more needed, and that our grandchildren may end up paying the debt. President-elect Obama will be in office in just 48 days. You can see the countdown clock to inauguration on my “Being the Change I Wish to See” blog. The link is in the left sidebar.
@wake up,
See comment on previous post. You didn’t leave your real name again or a link. Hummm.
I’ll spend what free time I have on whatever I choose. I don’t watch live TV. I watch what I want to see either online or via podcast, so I spend a lot less time on shows than most people. Online and podcasts come without commercials. A one-hour on-air show is really only 38 minutes long. The rest of the time is devoted to commercials.
Nick cartoons are good money makers and so are comic book movies and shows. I do a lot of advertising on my blogs and just having them online with new content a few times a month makes me money. I like to write on a lot of topics so I’ll write on whatever I want when I have time.
I believe it’s important to write about what effects my life, and hurricanes, the housing crisis and the national debt and economy have been effecting my life directly for 3 years now.
Even if they weren’t effecting me, I’d still right about everything except hurricanes. I was hit by Katrina, Rita and Gustav. I think I’m in a unique position as a survivor to write about them, so I’m writing about them. I also need to write about them for my own mental health. The stress and depression that come with that much destruction are overwhelming.
So what do your write about? Or do you just read other people’s blog posts and flame them?
Sherri
Comment by joubess | December 2, 2008
I am a new blogger which has given me appreciation of what others do with their blogs. I just wanted to say good work and although our sites are not really related if you want to swap blogrole links I would be interested.
Comment by Jenny R. | December 7, 2008
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too – keep up the great work!
Comment by Still Your Mind Now | December 12, 2008