$4.28 trillion dollars
A Links entry from Monday, November 17, 2008$4.28 trillion dollars
The amount the federal government has spent bailing out corporate America as a result of the latest financial crisis, according to CNBC. That’s more money, adjusted for inflation, than all the money spent on World War II. Check out their horrifying slideshow of what else it’s worth more than. Some examples include: The New Deal, the Vietnam War, the Panama Canal, and all the money ever spent on NASA.
The Treasury Asset Relief Program (TARP), aka the infamous “$700 bn. bailout,” is itself worth more than any other U.S. government endeavor dating back to the Louisiana Purchase. Via Think Progress.
Mark Elliot Cullen
Ugh, are you joking me?
Jason S.
“Strictly speaking, not every cent is directed a result of what’s called the financial crisis, but it arguably related to it.”
Ah, well, I guess I’ll just trust that CNBC doesn’t go out of its way to include anything and everything that could fall under the umbrella of having been in close proximity with the financial crisis. Cough.
The figure that this whole thing will cost us is no doubt vast, but 4.28 trillion dollars? First, they provide no context for the numbers they’re pooling; even introductory statistics stresses that all confines of the sample be accounted for (unless it’s purely observational, which it isn’t, because they’re presenting to us something they claim has already happened). Second, they provide no account for what exactly they’re determining is a “complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms”. How does one account for a “guarantee”? At the very best it would be an approximation of future expenditures. How does one account for “swaps”? Last time I checked, that involved the trade of equal value goods…it isn’t a calculable expenditure (no assets are lost). There are other fallacies presented in this article, but I have an essay that’s due.
Overall, I hate these types of articles. The mind can comprehend vast sums of money without someone holding its hand; 700 to 900 BILLION dollars alone is already unfathomable enough to make someone’s head hurt. Creating little tally marks and cutely comparing them to past circumstances does nothing but beat a dead horse. In reality, they’re no different than the news segments of the 90s that re-enacted multitudes of “possible” scenarios and endings of hostage situations or kidnappings or high speed chases. This “Tab”, or however they want to justify it, is sham journalism of the modern era. I’d imagine efforts would be better spent stopping a train wreck than striving to capture it frame by frame.
Jason S.
On a side note, and one that I originally didn’t want to bring up (this kind of thing is really just a straw man argument), but holy shit, if that’s the journalistic editing that goes on nowadays, wow. My grammar and spelling are generally atrocious, but whoever composed that article better have been an unpaid intern.
Mark Elliot Cullen
Good point about context. I’d say that the figures about the bailout are probably misleading. For example, you could just as easily say that since federal budget expenditures in 2007 totaled c. 2.7 Trillion, the yearly budget that year used more money than The New Deal, the Vietnam War, the Panama Canal, etc. That seems outrageous, but it wouldn’t be out of bounds with previous years.
I have to wonder about these adjusted for inflation figures and what exactly they take into account.
Bryan Klausmeyer
I was skeptical when I posted it as well, and the CNBC post is really sketchy. It’s strange that they include almost no details about what some of the rather ambiguous items on the list are. On the other hand, I came across the link via Think Progress, which is generally a reputable source of news, so I decided I’d post it any way. Interestingly, they lower their estimate to $3.8 trillion, despite having linked to the same article.
Bryan Klausmeyer
bryklaus@umich.edu
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