[hope_full]

I do not understand something about all this "bailout" business.

In November 2008, Congress approved $850 billion for TARP. Now Obama is talking about an economic stimulus of $825 billion. Is BO talking about *another* $825 billion, or is talking about allocating that original $850 billion?

If he's talking about another $825 billion, then we're talking about spending $2,000,000,000,000 in about 90 days time. A little back of the envelope calculating shows that an alternative would be to give every American household (110 million) a check for $18,181.

Now *that* would be a stimulus check.

So, how many trillions is BO talking about here? Is he really talking about an addition $825 billion? If so, where on earth is he going to get those dollars? That's a lot of moola.

[wd]

Let me see ... we are talking about 8 trillion and more.

825 is "another".

You might want to take a look at this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid= ... YrUuvkygWs

[mefistofeles]

Anywhere between three to five trillion. According to Nouriel Roubini at rgemonitor the figure is three trillion six hundred billion dollars:


Roubini Estimates True Costs are Three Point Six Trillion

I have also seen the five trillion dollar figure bantered about by various organizations.

Personally I think the costs will exceed five trillion. Since there is no way for the US to raise this sort of money the dollar will probably crash.

I've even started to hear estimates from people who were bullish on Treasuries just months ago that the dollar could lose 50% of its value.

[pedalling_faster]

Anywhere between three to five trillion. According to Nouriel Roubini at rgemonitor the figure is three trillion six hundred billion dollars:

...

I've even started to hear estimates from people who were bullish on Treasuries just months ago that the dollar could lose 50% of its value.

in the time period from 2002 to 2008, the US dollar fell from about $1.40 Canadian to $.93 Canadian, and is currently at about $1.25 Canadian.

this hit home hard. i saw a 9 acre lot with a 1500 square foot house in 2003, on an island off Vancouver Island. $65K Canadian, $45K US at the time. now you'd be lucky to find that for 10 times the price.

anyway, i would be very relieved if the US dollar only fell 50% from where it is now, during the next 10 years.

at the end of Bush-Cheney's term, the additional obligations related to the bankster bail-out act totalled $7.7 trillion. from another Bloomberg article, maybe one of the ones linked to above.

BUT - i think the money spent was less than that.

in any case, the US is borrowing to pay the money on the debt, while simultaneously borrowing hugely. i think in the case of a normal individual or corporation, this would be considered to correlate 100% to a condition of bankruptcy.

[bratticus]

[flash width=425 height=344]http://www.youtube.com/v/4es7u93zRlY[/flash]

[ReverseEngineer]

I do not understand something about all this "bailout" business.--snip-- Now *that* would be a stimulus check. So, how many trillions is BO talking about here? Is he really talking about an addition $825 billion? If so, where on earth is he going to get those dollars? That's a lot of moola.

The actual total in trillions has become irrelevant at this point. Besides the national debt actually on the Goobermint books, since da Goobermint is busily nationalizing all the banks by buying up their stock, effectively they are taking all this debt on as well. Then wen you consider that said banks have off balance sheet debts in the CDS market, you can see easily where the debt total could be $50T or $100T, who knows how much?

There is obviously no hope of ever taxing out the population to recover these losses, all the Goobermint is doing now is trying to keep the system working from day to day by pushing around mostly non-existent digital bits from one balance sheet to the next. Think about a boat rocking from side to side an a stormy sea, shipping water all the time and gradually sinking. The Goobermint is frantically moving water around in the ballast tanks trying to get the ship stabilized, but it keeps getting lower down in the water all the time.

Remember also, the problems with Goobermint debt isn't just on a Federal level, its also at the State and Municipal level. Specifics of Obama's "stimulus" plan reveal that about 1/4 of this $825B is earmarked to go to States and Municipalities to shore up their Medicaire funds and pay for their Police and sanitation workers, etc. Since the States are of course losing income rapidly as biznesses fail and as taxpayers lose their jobs, obviously next year they'll be in precisely the same or even worse condition of deficit, and will need yet another cash infusion to pay da bills. Just where is the money going to come from to bail out everyone again NEXT year? You guessed it, Helicopter Ben will print it up out of thin air.

At this point, about none of the bailout money is getting to the people that need it most, each of the individuals who have lost their jobs and no longer can keep up on their mortgage payments or car payments. At this point, if you really wanted to get an economy moving again, you could try putting everyone on the dole at a Salary of say $30K a year so they could pay their mortgages and buy some new cars from GM. Rather than do that, the Goobermint is throwing the funny money in bigger chunks at the Banksters in the hopes they will start lending it out, when in fact all they are doing is paying themselves huge bonuses and vactioning in Vail while Rome burns.

Just how long will the game last, you ask? Its remarkable its lasted this long, and going into the spring here you can see another industry in need of a bailout, since the banks won't lend money to the farmers, da Goobermint will have to do that with the Farm Bailout Bill coming down the pipe here by spring I am sure. I can see this going on for quite a while before the endless printing of funny money ever works its way into the real economy as inflation, since none of the money is actually getting out into the population to spend. On a trade level with other countries, the printing eventually renders the dollar worthless of course, but you still could barter the food you produce directly for Oil with countries that are heavy food importers.

The real key here is finding an equitable way to distribute out the money that encourages productivity, and finding something productive to actually DO. The best alternative would seem to be in Renewable Energy, aka a massive war-time like effort to build windmills and wave generators everywhere, which might not produce as much energy as oil but at least gives people something to DO here for a while. A PURPOSE in life, if you will. Just sitting back and watching the ship sink isn't a very good way to go out, at least make an ATTEMPT to bail the boat. Or scramble to build a few more lifeboats out of whatever floats on the ship before it goes down.

Or we can just load up on Popcorn and Beer and wait for the water to go over our heads. Its up to Obama now to Captain the Titanic as it sinks towards Davey Jones Locker. He will go down with the ship, but if he is a good President a few Lifeboats will get built and a few will.

[Jotapay]

The last announced figure was 8.5 trillion.

[dinopello]

We need to invest money, but we will borrow that from our kids and our grandkids. We won't worry about that in Washington. But the two things we can't borrow from you is time and energy, and that schematic curve that we showed a little bit ago, we can't even use all of that oil that's available to us for our ordinary economic activities or we'll have nothing to invest in these alternatives, so we have got to embark on a very aggressive conservation program so we have something to invest.

- Rosco Bartlett

Energy has been freed up due to this little global depression thing that we got going. Now is the time to invest. It just needs to be invested right. And that is what takes the work.

[Tyler_JC]

We have no choice but to spend trillions of dollars to prop up the economy and create growth.

If we don't create economic growth, how are we supposed to pay back all of the debt that was incurred to prop up the economy?

[Sixstrings]

pedalling_faster wrote:

anyway, i would be very relieved if the US dollar only fell 50% from where it is now, during the next 10 years.

I wonder if the Canadian dollar will fall as well. If not, I guess we'll be seeing even more Canadians here in Florida if they can buy 2 us dollars for 1 loony.

[EndOfGrowth]

I do not understand something about all this "bailout" business.

In November 2008, Congress approved $850 billion for TARP. Now Obama is talking about an economic stimulus of $825 billion. Is BO talking about *another* $825 billion, or is talking about allocating that original $850 billion?

If he's talking about another $825 billion, then we're talking about spending $2,000,000,000,000 in about 90 days time. A little back of the envelope calculating shows that an alternative would be to give every American household (110 million) a check for $18,181.

Now *that* would be a stimulus check.

So, how many trillions is BO talking about here? Is he really talking about an addition $825 billion? If so, where on earth is he going to get those dollars? That's a lot of moola.

The actual total in trillions has become irrelevant at this point. Besides the national debt actually on the Goobermint books, since da Goobermint is busily nationalizing all the banks by buying up their stock, effectively they are taking all this debt on as well. Then wen you consider that said banks have off balance sheet debts in the CDS market, you can see easily where the debt total could be $50T or $100T, who knows how much?

There is obviously no hope of ever taxing out the population to recover these losses, all the Goobermint is doing now is trying to keep the system working from day to day by pushing around mostly non-existent digital bits from one balance sheet to the next. Think about a boat rocking from side to side an a stormy sea, shipping water all the time and gradually sinking. The Goobermint is frantically moving water around in the ballast tanks trying to get the ship stabilized, but it keeps getting lower down in the water all the time.

Remember also, the problems with Goobermint debt isn't just on a Federal level, its also at the State and Municipal level. Specifics of Obama's "stimulus" plan reveal that about 1/4 of this $825B is earmarked to go to States and Municipalities to shore up their Medicaire funds and pay for their Police and sanitation workers, etc. Since the States are of course losing income rapidly as biznesses fail and as taxpayers lose their jobs, obviously next year they'll be in precisely the same or even worse condition of deficit, and will need yet another cash infusion to pay da bills. Just where is the money going to come from to bail out everyone again NEXT year? You guessed it, Helicopter Ben will print it up out of thin air.

At this point, about none of the bailout money is getting to the people that need it most, each of the individuals who have lost their jobs and no longer can keep up on their mortgage payments or car payments. At this point, if you really wanted to get an economy moving again, you could try putting everyone on the dole at a Salary of say $30K a year so they could pay their mortgages and buy some new cars from GM. Rather than do that, the Goobermint is throwing the funny money in bigger chunks at the Banksters in the hopes they will start lending it out, when in fact all they are doing is paying themselves huge bonuses and vactioning in Vail while Rome burns.

Just how long will the game last, you ask? Its remarkable its lasted this long, and going into the spring here you can see another industry in need of a bailout, since the banks won't lend money to the farmers, da Goobermint will have to do that with the Farm Bailout Bill coming down the pipe here by spring I am sure. I can see this going on for quite a while before the endless printing of funny money ever works its way into the real economy as inflation, since none of the money is actually getting out into the population to spend. On a trade level with other countries, the printing eventually renders the dollar worthless of course, but you still could barter the food you produce directly for Oil with countries that are heavy food importers.

The real key here is finding an equitable way to distribute out the money that encourages productivity, and finding something productive to actually DO. The best alternative would seem to be in Renewable Energy, aka a massive war-time like effort to build windmills and wave generators everywhere, which might not produce as much energy as oil but at least gives people something to DO here for a while. A PURPOSE in life, if you will. Just sitting back and watching the ship sink isn't a very good way to go out, at least make an ATTEMPT to bail the boat. Or scramble to build a few more lifeboats out of whatever floats on the ship before it goes down.

Or we can just load up on Popcorn and Beer and wait for the water to go over our heads. Its up to Obama now to Captain the Titanic as it sinks towards Davey Jones Locker. He will go down with the ship, but if he is a good President a few Lifeboats will get built and a few will survive.

Reverse Engineer

Some of the banks are actually using the money to restore their balance sheets.

[ReverseEngineer]

Some of the banks are actually using the money to restore their balance sheets.

What does "restore the balance sheets" mean?

It means they are using the funny money to paper over bed debts they have. Keeps the bank solvent, the guy actually LIVING i the house still gets foreclosed on and the house gets thrown in with all the rest of the McMansions to be auctioned off later in the "recovery" of assets.

Meanwhile, the Banksters keep their jobs because their money losing business has been given an infusion of funny money, and even if they don't pay themselves huge bonuses, they still have jobs, eh?

Euphimisms like "restoring balance sheets" and "quantitative easing" make me want to PUKE. It masks the truth here, which is that money is being printed up out of thin air and its being used to cover the losses of the banksters, so these wonderful institutions can survive to enslave everyone for another year.

If you are gonna print money out of thin air, at least give it directly to the people to spend and pay down their mortgages. This is SUPPOSSED to be a Goobermint "of the people, by the people and for the people". What it really is is a Goobermint "Of the people, by the Politicians, and for the Banksters".

Reverse Engineer

[EndOfGrowth]

Some of the banks are actually using the money to restore their balance sheets.

What does "restore the balance sheets" mean?

It means they are using the funny money to paper over bed debts they have. Keeps the bank solvent, the guy actually LIVING i the house still gets foreclosed on and the house gets thrown in with all the rest of the McMansions to be auctioned off later in the "recovery" of assets.

Meanwhile, the Banksters keep their jobs because their money losing business has been given an infusion of funny money, and even if they don't pay themselves huge bonuses, they still have jobs, eh?

Euphimisms like "restoring balance sheets" and "quantitative easing" make me want to PUKE. It masks the truth here, which is that money is being printed up out of thin air and its being used to cover the losses of the banksters, so these wonderful institutions can survive to enslave everyone for another year.

If you are gonna print money out of thin air, at least give it directly to the people to spend and pay down their mortgages. This is SUPPOSSED to be a Goobermint "of the people, by the people and for the people". What it really is is a Goobermint "Of the people, by the Politicians, and for the Banksters".

Reverse Engineer

It's a phrase often used here in the UK by our media. There is much hope that the cash injections/bailouts will "unblock the credit markets" and get banks lending money again, which is a desperate bid to re inflate house prices and restore sentiment so the banks, as you say, can enslave us once more into property "ownership" and Gordon Brown's miracle HPI/MEW economy will be saved. It's becoming clear now that the recent decade of growth was based on rising house values and home equity loans. All of this "wealth" has been an illusion and is in fact DEBT.

[jasonraymondson]

When will you all wake up and agree with me.

Lets petition for the clear cutting of the burdening

[shady28]

I do not understand something about all this "bailout" business.

In November 2008, Congress approved $850 billion for TARP. Now Obama is talking about an economic stimulus of $825 billion. Is BO talking about *another* $825 billion, or is talking about allocating that original $850 billion?

If he's talking about another $825 billion, then we're talking about spending $2,000,000,000,000 in about 90 days time.

Big misconception but common. The totals are correct, but the timeline is wrong.

The 2nd half of the 700 billion bailout passed last fall has just now been released, so we are currently 350+ billion into the bailout money.

The 825 billion plan Obama has requested is meant to be spent over a 2 year period. He has recently stated that he will spend 3/4 of it within 18 months.

275 Billion of it will come back in the form of tax rebates over the next 4 - 5 months or so.

The rest will take considerable planning and direction to utilize as much of it is infrastructure related, so I wouldn't expect to see it doing much in the economy until Q3 2009.

This is all assuming it even passes, or passes in its current form.