U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes
February 9th, 2009Via: Bloomberg:
The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged to provide up to $5.7 trillion more if needed. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps. The Senate is to vote early this week on a stimulus package totaling at least $780 billion that President Barack Obama says is needed to avert a deeper recession. That measure would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.
Only the stimulus package to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates approved in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion in commitments are lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the authority of the Fed and the FDIC. The recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
“…enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.”
This could be a 90% Jubilee, if it went to actually solve the problem. All debts paid in full starting at the bottom. People born in debt should be set free from parasites who live on debt.
@messianicdruid
No one ever forced me to borrow money or incur personal debt. And I’ve never personally met anyone who was forced to take out a mortgage or forced to purchase a car on time.
The caption on this article could be one from the Onion. Since when did U.S. taxpayers ever have a say in where their tax dollars were spent?
I liked this story tonight:
http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2009/02/one-of-the-worst-aspects-of-the-debate-over-the-economic-stimulus-package-has-to-be-the-sophistry-exhibited-by-the-far-right.html#more
I had dinner with my ex’s sister last night. She declared bankruptcy to get out of a loan she did in good faith on her daughter’s “promise” of future income. The condo she bought for her daughter in 2004 was a no interest loan. People were lining up to buy these condos in a highly populated city in the southeast U.S. My friend works in a bank, and if we had a few more hours to spend together, I know she could tell me the whole story. She doesn’t read progressive webs sites – she may not even look at the internet. But the food about fell out of my mouth when she said “this has been the largest transfer of wealth – to those with more from those who have none.” Or something like that.
@Pookie I agree no one ever forces anyone to do anything. I hope you will forgive yourself if you ever make a bad move financially and it doesn’t turn out to be a light and fluffy chiffon pie. Or raised doughnut, or whatever. Sheesh. That’s harsh.
@Eileen “I agree no one ever forces anyone to do anything. I hope you will forgive yourself if you ever make a bad move financially and it doesn’t turn out to be a light and fluffy chiffon pie. Or raised doughnut, or whatever. Sheesh. That’s harsh.”
Oh, don’t worry. People like me (the “recklessly prudent”) will be suffering almost as much as those who foolishly lived beyond their means and racked up ridiculous amounts of debt with no savings, with the assumption that real estate always goes up, the boom times always last forever — in short, that one need not study history or pay attention to anything that doesn’t show up in People magazine or on a “reality” TV show. With our government’s equally destructive (and ongoing) debasement of our currency, even savers like me (and that includes a lot of the elderly) will see their currency and living standards turn to dust. We’ll *all* be fighting over grubs for food. Is that harsh enough for you?
Pookie,
I hope that the world economy crashing, as I think it deserves to doesn’t become the scenario you described : We’ll *all* be fighting over grubs for food. Is that harsh enough for you?”
Well yes, I hope I don’t have to eat worms, EVER, let alone fight over them.
You may not know this Pookie, but I consider you one of my friends. I’ve never met you but I like you.
And I too, like you are one of the prudent ones.
I didn’t buy a house during the real estate craze, I sold all my stocks, and spent the money preparing and saving for when the shit really hits the fan. Unlike many of my brethren. But I have to forgive them, for they know not what they have done. Or do not know what has been done to them.
I for one think it is our karma or destiny to be living in these times. I think all souls have incarnated at this time for reasons we may not know. But shit. I’m not going to help matters by telling my friend she was a dumb ass for getting a zero interest loan when she is in the midst of her pain of understanding. When she is explaining to me exactly what she did that was so – well stupid.
I think we are on the same “side” of understanding Pookie. I don’t know any better than anyone what’s going to happen. I just try to stay on the side of the ledger, like Daddy told me to, where I don’t owe people money. In my life, which was spiraling out of control 30 or more years ago with money, that’s what my Dad told me. And He’s been gone many years now, but without him telling me that I’d be in the same boat as all of these people who are now just like as I was then. They didn’t get that you can’t spend more than you earn whether its on plastic, a mortgage, or whatever. I for one was never willing to sign a mortgage cause I don’t think my emotional constitution could stand owing someone money. So I thank the god/dess for that.
I just can’t judge people and call them stupid for doing the very things I would have done if not for the fact that I had hmm, good parents. Except that I used to call them morons. HAH.
For myself, I’m thinking that a lot of people are going through that kind of discussion my father had with me that day so long ago. The party is definitely over and most of the world is way behind you and me and lots of other people who read this website. I wrote that you were harsh because I took what you said personally. It took me a long time to forgive myself for being stupid about my spending ways. And it took me a long time to crawl out of my hole. I for one am going to try to be more like my Dad. Try to educate people about money and what the “old economy” was. I want to help build a new one where the prudent are the teachers. Like you Pookie. My olive branch, dear one.