Financial bailout cost each US citizen $10,000

steven johnson

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Thu Sep-10-09 07:08 PM
Original message

Financial bailout cost each US citizen $10,000

A dollar here, a dollar there, but who's counting?

Unless you're part of the 'greed is good' generation, in which case you want to find a culprit since one's own bad choices regarding ris k and investment were guaranteed by the current wisdom -- "IT CAN'T BE MY FAULT."

OK, get a grip.

The world's largest economies have spent $10,000 for every person in a bid to fix the financial meltdown of the past year.
New calculations by the BBC, based on IMF data given to G20 finance ministers, shows these countries have spent a total of $10 trillion (£6tn).
The UK and US spent the most, with the UK spending far more, 94% of its GDP compared to 25% in the US.
That equates to $30,000 per person in the UK and $10,000 in the US.
The private financial sector is estimated to have write-offs amounting to $4tn, of which two-thirds are losses suffered by the big international banks such as Citigroup or RBS.

Governments spent $10.8 trillion on the bail-out

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kilo729

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Thu Sep-10-09 07:22 PM
Response to Original message

1. Printing..

Money is a fantastic plan, I mean, it's totally backed by tangible things.

Right?

...

Guys?

Keynesian economics hasn't been proven to have worked before, something tells me it's not going to work now.

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IrateCitizen

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Thu Sep-10-09 08:01 PM
Response to Reply #1

3. Regarding Keynesian economics

Actually, it worked very well for 25 years or so following WWII in preventing another global economic meltdown and the attendant social unrest that led to fascism. Of course, like all other ideas, it hardened into an ideology.

In this sense, it's not much different than classical liberalism (that helped bring about the conditions that led to fascism), or its more ruthless and corrupt reincarnation, Friedmanism.

However, you're spot on regarding money not being backed by anything tangible (other than massive debt).

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girl gone mad

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Fri Sep-11-09 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #1

6. Keynesian economics has worked..

many times throughout history. It isn't a one size fits all economic solution, however.

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MannyGoldstein

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Thu Sep-10-09 07:40 PM
Response to Original message

2. But it cost each banker negative $1million

Pretty good deal, no?

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IrateCitizen

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Thu Sep-10-09 08:03 PM
Response to Reply #2

4. Is that a mean or median figure?

:grr:

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notesdev

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Fri Sep-11-09 01:18 AM
Response to Original message

5. Looks like a lowball figure to me

$10k times ~300 million people comes to $3 trillion. Our potential loss exposure is nearly 8 times that figure, and that's just what we know about. Given that we're dealing with two highly secretive institutions in the Fed and Treasury, I wouldn't be surprised to see that number even higher.

Now, when you figure that among the 300 million there are really only about 100 million actual taxpayers, triple the damages to each taxpayer.

Where are you going to find the $30,000 (minimum) to pay your share? If you had that money in hand, what are the odds you would choose to bail out the banking system with it, behaving like they do?

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Boojatta

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Fri Sep-11-09 06:52 PM
Response to Original message

7. What kind of costs (not just money costs) would there be if there were no bailout?

Is the greatest hoax of all time the claim that Herbert Hoover's economic policy was anything other than a brilliant success? Well, of course it's a matter of personal judgment. Some people would say that a greater hoax was persuading people that human beings have ever split the atom, traveled from London (Heathrow) to New York (JFK) in under four hours, or traveled to the moon and back home to the Earth.

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