[JJ]

Bloomberg is now reporting that coming this Tuesday, the new Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy (tax-cheat) Geithner is going to unveil a bank rescue plan, consisting of asking Congress for an additional $1.3Trillion for the Troubled Asset Relief (TARP) program. This is to be added to the already allocated (and spent) previous EESA funding for the TARP of $700Billion.

Bloomberg
For those of you keeping track at home, this is a total of *$2Trillion of taxpayer money* which has been given to the banks that caused this mess in the first place.

At the same time this hit the wires, Larry Summers, who took Geithner's place at the New York Fed, gave an interview to ABC News' George Stephanopolis. This is the opening exchange:

*STEPHANOPOULOS*: Let me ask about that financial overhaul. Originally, Secretary Geithner was supposed to give that speech tomorrow. Administration officials are telling me it's now more likely on Tuesday?

*SUMMERS*: Yes, I think there's a desire to keep the focus right now on the economic recovery program, which is so very, very important.

*STEPHANOPOULOS*: So Tuesday it is.

[hope_full]

I wish someone could help me understand because I must not be getting this.

1) $1 trillion is a fantastic sum of money. Do the American people really understand how enormous this sum of money is? And how and where is our government going to raise/borrow this fantastic sum of money?

2) I'm guessing Tax-cheat Geithner's $1.4 trillion is in addition to the $1 trillion from December and the $1 trillion from last night (Friday the 13th), so that's $3.4 trillion new dollars of debt. It'll take decades to pay that off, and factor in interest and it may *never* be paid off.

3) I'm quite upset, worried, rattled, etc. Is it possible for this mess to *not* have a really bad ending?

Hope

[Tanada]

Ah what the hell, I guess I should go and cash out my 401 K and take the 20% penalty and use the cash for preps cause in two years the hyperinflation will take at least 20% off the value anyhow

[beamofthewave]

what about the 2 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra rich Bush put in place? Why not reinstate them to pay for all this?

[miraculix]

It'll take decades to pay that off, and factor in interest and it may *never* be paid off.

yes, it will be paid off - it is called quantative easing

we commoners refer to it as INFLATION

check out Peter Schiff on the oracle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqDbTXxiwxQ

[SeaGypsy]

Here's a way to explain how much a trillion bucks really is:

Give the 20 million Australians a year paid holiday!

That's right. Square the bills of Australia for 1 year with enough change to do something Christian; like paying the national debt of some country in Africa.

[Plantagenet]

It was only a few months ago that Obama campaigned on a program of balancing the budget using "pay-go" accounting. In the debates Obama repeatedly promised be transparent and to go through budgets "line by line" to cut out all the fat and balance the budget.

Now he turns out to be the greatest spender in all of history, generating deficits 5-10X larger then Bush....and his program consists of nothing more then borrowing huge amounts of money and spending it. There was no transparency, no "pay-go" and not a hint of Obama going through the budget...in fact Nancy Pelosi wrote it with a few cronies, and no even saw the whole thing before it was voted on.

The saddest thing of all is that these trillions could have been used to build nukes across the US, build high speed rail between major cities, build levees to protect New Orleans, etc. etc. and instead Obama is going to waste the trillions on condoms, repaving roads, mob museums, and similar pork.

[aldente]

So far money came from a well....

[Sys1]

The saddest thing of all is that these trillions could have been used to build nukes across the US, build high speed rail between major cities, build levees to protect New Orleans, etc. etc.

We built our modern civilization with hydrocarbons. In this, money had the role of a Pandora box which forced us to perpetually use more and more ressources. Now it's late...
We'll get very soon that money worths nothing more than the religious value that main strem medias and "education " gave daily to us. We have passed peak oil.
From now, we'll have less and less during our lifetime (at least).

I don't care about the exact scenario : deflation, depression, hyperinflation, stagflation, what the point? We on the whole planet are heading towards poverty, violence and famine.

The trillions you worry about are just here to allow you to post a few more messages on the Internet. What do Obama-Yes-We-Can is playing violin on the Titanic instead of screaming to death.

[Tanada]

I vaguely recall from somewhere in my 20 years of reading that they did a study to see how many zero's you can hack off a currency at any one time to revalue it without completely losing the faith of the people. It seems to me the number they came up with is only 2, as in you can reset a currency to 1% of its face value to counteract inflation without people going crazy and stopping commerce, but you can only do it once or it loses all meaning. If that's true then they can reset the US dollar by hacking off two zero's and when they do then a Trillion dollars becomes a mere 10 Billion, a number we all have heard often enough its is familiar though a large number.

The trick is to do it without prior warning like at midnight on a Saturday morning. All computer's in all the banks simply move the decimal place on all deposits and debts over by 2 places, the Government announces it early Saturday morning and by Monday when the markets open people have realized its a fait acompli. The bad news, all your deposits are cut by 99%, the good news, all your debts are cut by 99% too and the money you make from now on is worth much much more than it was before.

Like I said it only works with a fiat currency like we have and it only works once, and because everything world wide is pegged to the dollar it effects all the foreign currencies the same way.

Who wants to bet they have this in the back of their minds for the not too distant future?

[nobodypanic]

a trillion $$? that was like the iraq war, right? and the bush tax cut? where was the protest from the right then?

[AgentR]

a trillion $$? that was like the iraq war, right? and the bush tax cut? where was the protest from the right then?

There was plenty of protest; just because you conveniently like to pretend it didn't exist doesn't make it so.

There were plenty of people outraged at the idea you would engage in a war AND cut taxes at the same time.

Spending on this scale, and in this manner is bad. It was bad then, it is bad now.
We're gonna do it anyway though; and I'm gonna enjoy my free booze money while I heckle the idgit-in-chief in the process.

Dear Mr. President... A trillion dollars could make a heck of a dent in the process of fixing the US Health Insurance/Care system. Your lack of interest.. is interesting.

[nobodypanic]

damn, you got me! i did indeed pretend that the mass protest of right-wingers against the cost of the iraq war and bush tax cuts never happened.

you wanna pass me what you're smoking?

[AgentR]

damn, you got me! i did indeed pretend that the mass protest of right-wingers against the cost of the iraq war and bush tax cuts never happened.

So let me get this straight, not only do you want to dictate protest; but you demand that we protest like YOU protest. We write letters and complain on talk radio. I'm sorry if that doesn't impress you. A bajillion wandering peons strolling about the Washington mall I find to be entirely unimpressive.

Besides, it wasn't about the cost, it was about NOT PAYING FOR IT. Lots of right wingers were entirely happy about beating the crud out of Iraq, but were offended by the idea that taxes should be cut and checks should be mailed out to one and all AT THE SAME TIME. I believe the line was "as a sacrifice we should go shopping?!?!?!?!?!"

[Ferretlover]

Wonder what is propping up the poor camel carrying all these straws? Must look an awful lot like a Rube Goldberg contraption!

[AgentR]

Wonder what is propping up the poor camel carrying all these straws? Must look an awful lot like a Rube Goldberg contraption!

Fear of the tiger that we have by the tail.
In the worst sense too.

[nobodypanic]

damn, you got me! i did indeed pretend that the mass protest of right-wingers against the cost of the iraq war and bush tax cuts never happened.

So let me get this straight, not only do you want to dictate protest; but you demand that we protest like YOU protest. We write letters and complain on talk radio. I'm sorry if that doesn't impress you. A bajillion wandering peons strolling about the Washington mall I find to be entirely unimpressive.

Besides, it wasn't about the cost, it was about NOT PAYING FOR IT. Lots of right wingers were entirely happy about beating the crud out of Iraq, but were offended by the idea that taxes should be cut and checks should be mailed out to one and all AT THE SAME TIME. I believe the line was "as a sacrifice we should go shopping?!?!?!?!?!"

what are you babbling about? your presidential candidate was all for keeping the bush tax cuts.<-- i doubt he would have been for it if the majority of his base were against it.

so i will say it again: in general the right was FOR the war and FOR the bush tax cuts. and more than that, the same representative a**hats that were so ready to turn a blind eye to that spending now have the gall to cry that the sky is falling when essentially the same amount of money is to be spent by a dem.

sorry you don't like me pointing out the hypocrisy, but too bad.

[AgentR]

what are you babbling about? your presidential candidate was all for keeping the bush tax cuts.<-- i doubt he would have been for it if the majority of his base were against it.

I didn't know I *had* a presidential candidate. There were two liberals running for the office from the two major parties; and a few nutbars from the various minor parties.

so i will say it again: in general the right was FOR the war and FOR the bush tax cuts.

The right didn't even have a presidential candidate.

In addition; this general group you are referring to was largely either one OR the other; the intersection of both was arguably pretty slim. More along the lines of TOLERATING the other.

sorry you don't like me pointing out the hypocrisy, but too bad.

Feel free to point out the hypocrisy of those that supported the war and supported tax cuts. I'm not one, and never have been one. I was (and remain) supportive of our resource wars overseas, and I remain strongly committed to the principle of striking down vast quantities of tax cuts and social spending.

[nobodypanic]

A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff

Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions

By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq


Monday, 16 February 2009

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-fraud-bigger-than-madoff-1622987.html

among other gems:

In the early days of the occupation, well-connected Republicans were awarded jobs in Iraq, regardless of experience. A 24-year-old from a Republican family was put in charge of the Baghdad stock exchange which had to close down because he allegedly forgot to renew the lease on its building.