$8.5 trillion bank bailout cost $5 million per taxpayer
How often does government wasteful spending make news? Is waste so common that it no one notices?
This black hole of government waste was too big to miss. Yet it was:
$8.5 trillion, a lottery size check of $5.3 million, for you and every other taxpayer.
Big enough for $8.5 trillion to be the size of 14.592 per cent of the world economy.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/worlds-biggest-economies-in-2017/
And big enough to be 60 per cent of this country's gross national product (GNP). The GNP measures a country's total economic output for one year.
But never too big for the fed's black hole. Regardless of size, the hole scarfs down trillions, makes it disappear, never to return or be seen again. Where did it go? Who wolfed it down?
How much was it really?
Bloomberg News is the world's largest financial news agency. On Nov. 24, 2008, they reported $8.5 trillion as the size of the fed black hole.
Congress called it the "Troubled Asset Relief Plan or TARP. Others called it the Big Bank Bailout.
Bloomberg reported:
Tax rebates made under Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, were tax-free and made only to taxpayers. Since half the country's population of 320 million pay no federal taxes, 160 million could qualify.
For you, that check should have been:
$5.3 million!
Do you want that taxable or tax-free like the Big Banks got? The Big Banks are Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup. The insurance company, AIG, should be added too.
How many zeros in a trillion? Twelve. It is written:
$8,500,000,000,000
How many U.S. citizens are paying taxes and could be eligible for tax rebates?
160,000,000
The $8.5 trillion divided by 160 million persons is $5,312,500. Every taxpayer in this country could have been a lottery winner. Instead, the Big Banks wolfed it down.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Government-bailout-hits-8-5-trillion-3183181.php
Was the Bank Bailout really $8.5 trillion? The reported amounts ranged from $450 billion to $23 trillion. Here's the high end, reported by MSNBC on Feb.4, 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-JTXlNAljE
Somewhere in the middle was CBS News. They reported $7 trillion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iupyv1f2pSc&t=33s
On the low end was the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Their report dated May 23, 2013 said $450 million. It was their first report since 1913.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/4425
On October 2, 2008, head of the U.S. Treasury Department, Henry Paulson, said the bailout "was not based on any particular data point. It was just a really large number."
Senator Elizabeth Warren confirmed that when she asked Treasury officials for numbers, they refused to answer. Warren was a member on the Congressional TARP Oversight Panel.
Dennis Kucinich, Congressman from Ohio, confirmed the amount to be $7.7 trillion. At the time, Kucinich headed Congress' Committee of Government Oversight.
