Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Disheartening

Today's news on CNN Money included "Leaders from both parties expressed concern Wednesday that a taxpayer-funded bailout of the financial industry will be used to pad the pockets of executives rather than get the economy rolling again".
Does any have the heart to do the sums below (found in comments on CalculatedRisk) and divide by the US population of 300,000,000 to see what our per person debt is adding up to? I sure don't:
$700 Billion – Treasury to purchase toxic mortgages and other non-performing assets from financial institutions.
$50 Billion – To guarantee principal in money market mutual funds.
$10 Billion+ – Treasury purchases of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in September. More to come.
$144 Billion – In additional MBS purchases by FNM and FRE. Limit $850 billion. FNM’s portfolio currently holds $758.1 billion and FRE holds $798.2 billion.
$85 Billion – AIG bridge loan giving the Fed a 79.9% controlling stake in the firm.
$87 Billion – Repayments to JP Morgan (JPM) for providing financing to underpin trades with the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers. In response to the Fed & Treasury’s stand against providing public funds to consummate a deal.
$200 Billion – $100 billion capital infusion for FNM and FRE by the Treasury.
$300 Billion – Provided to the FHA to refinance failing mortgages into new, reduced principal loans with a federal guarantee as part of the housing bill.
$4 Billion – Provided to local communities to purchase and repair abandoned homes due to foreclosure.
$29 Billion – Financing for JPM’s takeover of Bear Sterns. The Fed takes $30 billion in non-performing assets as collateral.
$200 Billion – Currently outstanding loans to banks through the Fed’s Term Auction Facility. Recently updated to allow loans of 84 days in addition to the original 28-day!
$150 billion stimulus checks

3 comments:

Greeleo said...

oye, thanks for that morale boost for my work day. very disheartening.

Piri said...

You used to be an optimist. What happened?

Lona said...

I'm not unoptimistic for myself. It seems like the next generations will feel the full brunt of the debt.