The Two Trillion Dollar Black Hole

[teamdaemon]

Bump. This one and also this one:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=21495

[Iroquois]

Yep, bump and ditto, and ditto to plug for the thread above teamdeamon posted a link to. I am completely in the dark here and greatly appreciate your contribution, JackRiddler, as well that of anyone else who adds to these "Great Con" themed threads.

[Penguin]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article. ... ecri880405

"U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Saturday that Congress was not told the truth about the bailout of the nation’s financial system and should take back what is left of the $700 billion “blank check” it gave the Bush administration.

“It is just outrageous that the American people don’t know that Congress doesn’t know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,” the Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World.

“It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don’t know. There is no way of knowing.
"I have learned a long time ago. When they come up and say this has to be done and has to be done immediately, there is no other way of doing it, you have to sit back and take a deep breath and nine times out of 10 they are not telling the truth,'' he said.

"And this is one of those nine times.”

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?a ... Groupspace
"Bailout Oversight Panel Empty"

[beeline]

/

Are RIers losing interest in the biggest scam-reveal we've ever had?

/

Nope. I'm just wondering how far down the rabbit hole it goes.

[ninakat]

Financial Crisis Tab Already In The Trillions
CNBC.com | 18 Nov 2008 | 04:38 PM ET

Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money at the financial crisis, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress, might not be faulted for losing track.

CNBC, however, has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved.

Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That's $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources*.

Not only is it a astronomical amount of money, its' a complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other offices of government taken over roughly the last year, based on government data and news releases. Strictly speaking, not every cent is a direct result of what's called the financial crisis, but it is arguably related to it.

Some 68-percent of the sum falls under the Federal Reserve's umbrella, while another 16 percent is the under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, as defined under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, signed into law in early October. (The TARP alone is bigger than virtually any other US government endeavor dating back to the Louisiana Purchase. See slideshow.)



*References includ US National Archive, US Dept of Defense, US Bureau of Reclamation, Library of Congress, NASA, Panama Canal Authority, FDIC, Brittanica, WSJ, Time, CNN.com, and a number of other websites.

[Penguin]

Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That's $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources*.

Goddamn. Just. Goddamn. Thats a fucking lot of money plundered, pilfered, swindled, robbed, stolen, cheated. Amazing.

[Pele'sDaughter]

In broad daylight no less. It's so easy for them and at this rate they won't be stopping anytime soon.

[ninakat]

Penguin, yeah that little statistic stuck out at me too -- glad you highlighted it. The numbers are beyond comprehension, really, which of course makes it easier to just keep on stealing in bigger and bigger quantities. Here's another one from the article that needs highlighting: The TARP alone is bigger than virtually any other US government endeavor dating back to the Louisiana Purchase.

Pele'sDaughter, indeed they won't be stopping anytime soon. This is just the beginning by some accounts. And, here's another statistic for you: that $4.28 trillion is almost 1/3 of the entire yearly GDP of the U.S. -- $14.43 trillion.