But as a matter of legality…I am on the hook for $50k.

Right now, $24 trillion is what the USG is on the hook for…and if everybody bails out, and the stimulus fails to provide that “jolt” to the economy, and if joblessness goes above 15%…yeah, we could be trying to pay this thing off for the rest of the century. Maybe all those nations who bought our notes might be willing to “forgive” the debt. But, if it comes to that, we’ll have become a Third World economy.

If there was ever a reason why the Obama Administration and the Dem Congress raced into the stimulus, the energy bill, cap and tax and this “health care” bill, it was to prevent anyone from actually having access to the figures, actually looking at the end game, and maybe being able to forestall this overly gross commitment of American wealth.

This number is derived from adding the maximums, the “caps” on all these programs. These “caps” are the financial commitments that have been made.

For someone whose handle is based on the term for really long words, you seem to be having trouble with the phrase, “as much as.”

ThereGoesTheNeighborhood on July 25, 2009 at 12:18 PM

the point is that it’s like calculating the costs of health care reform and assuming that all insured Americans will be sick at once – it’s possible in theory but the result is useless as a true measure.

sesquipedalian on July 25, 2009 at 12:42 PM

It’s a worst-case scenario, but it’s exactly as described: the total amount of money the government has committed itself to spend if necessary. That is not an irrelevant figure to bear in mind.

PLEASE!

I want to see all the fired/discredited investigators standing on the steps of Congress protesting!

the problem is that it emboldens people like ed to write things like “the Obama administration had committed itself to spending as much as $24,000,000,000,000 to fix the American economy.” for the reasons linked above, it’s absolute nonsense.

sesquipedalian on July 25, 2009 at 10:49 AM

Actually, if you read the SIGTARP Report at page 137 of section 3, the authors tell us what their methodology is and why they made an effort to pull in various undocumented, off-balance sheet items in the “Federal balance sheet.” The report specifically mentions guarantees by the Federal Reserve and unrecorded Federal balance sheet items, the potential overlap of items, and Total Potential Support items.

When one considers that the value of all derivatives in all financial markets worldwide is something like $565 TRILLION
(see the third installment of The Ascent of Money towards the end for this estimate; currently available for free on PBS.org) and that the GDP of all countries worldwide is merely $63 to $65 TRILLION (see wikipedia for this one – that is good enough for the rough estimate) you can see that hedge funds are making money on nothing but AIR! If the Fed is similarly making guarantees that they cannot fulfill from current receipts but must borrow to do so, then one would expect either the interest cost on borrowing to go up or the guarantee to be completely unfunded (like California).

Increased interest costs are inflationary and also, at the same time, cause a devaluation of the USD on foreign exchange markets. The spending that the administration wants to initiate is going to be truly all the Change that socialists might Hope for. Hopey & Changey. And EXPENSIVE!

Are you ready for tent cities and lawlessness in national parks?

I have 4 brothers who all voted for the Zero. Three have major BDS and can do nothing but talk about Bush. We got into it last month when I was home. The big mouthed one went all apeshit about how many people Bush has killed blah, blah. Wanted him to talk about Obama since Bush isn’t president anymore. Didn’t really want to talk about him. Hmmm…I said why don’t you want to talk about the radical you put in the White House? “What? We know Barack Obama. My son, (my nephew, who campaigned for him and is a sophomore at Wharton) informed us all about him. We know the man.” Oh really? Do you know that his grandparents were member of the “little red church” on the hill when the lived in Washington state? Do you know what his mother’s name is? Not Ann, Stanley? Blank looks. Do you know who Frank Marshall Davis is? CPUSA member? Do you know that is? Yeah, you know Barack Obama…this conversation’s over. Night.

Barofsky fires back at Treasury, says $24,000,000,000,000 estimate sound
…

Thank you Barofsky and Tapper. When Obama has you fired, there will always be a spot on Fox News. They’re going to have to open up a second news network soon to counter the propaganda from Obama and the MSM.

Christian Conservative on July 25, 2009 at 1:34 PM

Tapper and Stossel make ABC News tolerable. Fox News would be a great channel with Tapper on it if he ever leaves ABC News. The same with Stossel.

No, the point it that the Government is Guarenteeing all these things. Thus, they HAVE NO RISK!

Thus, the folks involved in these businesses and industries can take stupid risks, and make stupid descisions because the Government is backing them.

Prolbem is that the Free Enterprise system needs both Risk, and Reward. We have now taken the Risk out, and therefore the Weak and Stupid will continue to drag the economy into a cesspool of non performance.

Romeo13 on July 25, 2009 at 1:31 PM

That’s pretty much the issue. It was the same with Fannie and Freddie, conservatives worried about the growing trillions the government was backing while democrats argued it was no big deal, it’s not like it will all go bad at once and it was worth rolling the dice over to get more houses for poor people.

No we didn’t end up paying out the full amount but we’ve paid out a large fraction directly and indirectly and that only comes to around $2 trillion. That’s the main issue here, people will take stupid risks and the government could very easily be left with a bill totalling a large fraction of $24 trillion. Even if it is a small risk, that is a global economy crashing outcome if it happens. Something we should be thinking about, but I must say it sure would be easier to blindly follow the NYT and Obama nd believe nothing can go wrong. Shame reality doesn’t allow it.

Jeff from WI on July 25, 2009 at 11:14 AM

What will Obama’s slogan be in 2012? Yes We Can…..With a 12 percent unemployment rate. Tee hee.

I agree about the Hollywood Left and the “cool factor.” They are such a joke on these late-night shows. One crappy-ass joke about Sarah Palin and the crowd goes wild. Jimmy Fallon dared to make fun of the Clintons’ marriage the other night and got booed. The fact that the audience is even there just testifies to the celebrity-worship that these morons practice. Dana Carvey called Obama a “rock star” president and the crowd went wild. Try complimenting Bush and he’d have a javelin thrown at him.

Oh, and anyone know whatever happened to those toxic assets legacy assets the banks were suppose to be selling off and getting off their books?

katablog.com on July 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM

From what I understand, mark to market rules were changed thus eliminating the need to immediately sell the toxic assets. Which a lot of conservatives before TARP were saying was a better way of dealing with the problem without throwing $700 billion but we are where we are.

the point is that it’s like calculating the costs of health care reform and assuming that all insured Americans will be sick at once – it’s possible in theory but the result is useless as a true measure.

sesquipedalian on July 25, 2009 at 12:42 PM

No, the point it that the Government is Guarenteeing all these things. Thus, they HAVE NO RISK!

Thus, the folks involved in these businesses and industries can take stupid risks, and make stupid descisions because the Government is backing them.

Prolbem is that the Free Enterprise system needs both Risk, and Reward. We have now taken the Risk out, and therefore the Weak and Stupid will continue to drag the economy into a cesspool of non performance.

Barofsky forgot to take the dreaded “profit and earnings ratios” into account. That changes everything

Not only that, but he’s ignoring the arugula index.