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Ear to the Ground

2008 Bailouts to Cost More Than All Others Combined

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Posted on Sep 24, 2008
propublica.org

Assuming the administration’s $700-billion scheme is approved, the total price tag for bailouts this year—including Bear Stearns, AIG and Freddie and Fannie—will be roughly three times greater than all other U.S. bailouts ever. Because $1.015 trillion is a hard figure to wrap one’s head around, ProPublica puts the numbers in perspective.

ProPublica:

Together with the total of $315 billion the government put forward earlier this year to engineer the bailouts of Bear Stearns, AIG and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the administration’s new plan brings the potential price tag of the current subprime crisis up to $1.015 trillion. The total for all U.S. government bailouts predating this year, by comparison, is $347.5 billion.

After the jump is our updated chart—and graphic—showing the history of U.S. government bailouts, calculated in 2008 dollars.

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By Jack of heart, September 25 at 8:23 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Time to do whats best for America and let go of ISRAEL.  The pro-israel jews in D.C is what ruined America.

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By yacovm, September 24 at 10:45 pm #

WE MUST PROTEST THIS BAILOUT
THAT’S WHY THEY WANT TO PUSH IT SO FAST BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

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By samosamo, September 24 at 8:22 pm #

Expat,

I read ‘The Shock Doctrine’ and I have commented else where on TD for people to read this most revealing piece of history, the history you or anyone will NEVER get from the msm or school here in the U.S.A. because the ministry of truth has erased it from the past. Bless Naomi Klein and her temerity to expose this in a way that will ‘shock’ a lot of people and bring understanding to others. I also have read Daniel Eustulin’s book ‘The Bilderberg Group’ with its attempt to bring to light what the richest .001% of the people on this planet are trying to accomplish. Bilderbergs and other related groups and clubs and organizations beholding to money(and lots of it) for their facade of power over the world. Yes, the actual conspiracy to rule the world to their advantage.
Because the world is led to believe in an ‘idea’ of wealth represented by a piece of paper that is labeled on each USDollar bill as ‘legal tender’ is just plain empty blow hard dribble. There may be some paper ‘currency’ that is backed by a precious metal or crystals but it is mostly a medium to be used as method of massive manipulation that works when people are led to believe in it as such, you know ‘FAITH BASED’.
I found ‘The Shock Doctrine’ hard depressing reading because the whole book, except the last chapter, reveals the TRUTH about Milton Friedman’s ideology of how great the ‘unfettered free market’ and ‘privatization’ is for the people and nations of this world. Great in that it never failed to produce the criminal element that is inherent in an unregulated use of massive amounts of money in a system contrived by someone more concerned with massive wealth that may have had an early intent for most people but always ended up benefiting the few and leaving anywhere from 25% to 60% of the the rest unemployed, deep in debt and in poverty. Which is really the main theme of the ideology, creating and maintaining a tight control of nations and people by DEBT.
With the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and some other central type banking and money laundering entities using money and policies from less than scrupulous think tanks and ‘elitist’ organization’s greedy minds and the inability of the well entertained and hardly informed populaces, there will be a control that does not help the people except the few wealthy ones.
And that final chapter of ‘the shock doctrine’ does give light and hope in that the countries that went through the hell of going from public owned to privatized industries and utilities finally realized the danger from such an economic system for investors and the elite. Eyes opened to the real consequences of that, the populaces of those countries have begun to kick these financial dictatorial entities out of their countries and have gone back to the more balanced public and private ownerships of those industries and businesses.
Now it seems that america is at that juncture where more and more people having found out by experience of an economic system that is about to bring our country down are beginning to realize that things like the federal reserve and the idiotic fools that are still trying to perpetuate the same old ‘cronyism’ economics are really beginning to hurt and now more and more people are waking up, HOPEFULLY, and maybe then, the federal reserve can be shown the door and told to ‘not let the door hit you in the ass’. But for such a change to really work, there is a real need for a responsible and eternally vigilant congress and white house that have control, oversight, and proceedings to hold on to a better world.
P.S. As stated, I believe in Chalmers Johnson’s works or maybe ‘Orwell Rolls in His Grave’—‘Our founding fathers never intended for a more efficient government, but one of compromise and oversight to guard against just such as is happening here in America now by some very ruthless and evil and greedy people. (paraphrased)

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By Kashilinus, September 24 at 8:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Regarding the graphics, balloons are just too friendly. Seven hundred billion dollars would build a thousand NYC world trade centers. Now that’s graphic!

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By jackpine savage, September 24 at 5:40 pm #

Ooooh, the mother of all bailouts!

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By Expat, September 24 at 3:19 pm #

You might want to listen to Naomi Klein on Democracy Now;

Very interesting times......

http://www.democracynow.org/

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