The Ongoing Bailout

Wow, this is a scary number I just heard on the Rachel Maddow show...

The current price tag thus far spent on bailouts for the current crisis (not including Citigroup) is about $4.3 trillion.

According to Barry Ritholtz, author of "Bailout Nation", even after adjusting for inflation, that sum costs more than each of the following:

• Marshall Plan
• The Louisiana Purchase
• The race to moon
• The Savings & Loan Crisis
• The Korean War
• The New Deal
• The invasion and ongoing war in Iraq
• The Vietnam War
• The entire budget of NASA over its entire existence

Not individually, COMBINED.

Adjusted to today's dollars, those nine historical events cost $3.92 trillion.

And one more interesting number: According to one site I found, the total of all mortgages in the United States today is estimated to be about $12 trillion. Which means in trying to solve a crisis sparked by bad mortgages, we have spent an amount sufficient to pay off more than a third of every mortgage in the country.

(Not that I'm suggesting using the money in that fashion would be a good idea, after all, supposedly there's some chances that we as a country may get some portion of that $4.3 trillion back, either in loan repayments or because we've assumed ownership of a portion of the assets of those we've bailed out. Still, though, it's a sobering number).

Liam.