numbers that make me want to
From Barry Ritholtz blog today ;
"I found that whenever I discussed the current bailout situation, people had a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. In doing the research for the Bailout Nation book, that was a problem. I needed a way to put this into proper historical perspective.
If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.
Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:
• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion
__________________________________________________ ____________________
data courtesy of Bianco Research
>
That is $686 billion
less than the cost of the credit crisis
thus far.
The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion
The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation (original cost was $288 billion).
Go figure: WWII was a relative bargain.
I estimate that by the time we get through 2010, the final bill may scale up to as much as $10 trillion dollars…"
Mind you what this analysis does not take into account are:
1.The growth of the size of the american and world economies since 1930
2. how much of the estimated 4.6 trillion dollars is recoverable-- I have seen reports that state that the SL crisis cost about 800 million going in and at the back end the cost was 153 billion mentioned above-- so net cost of this bailout will be/ should be less than what is being estimated-- but they are still damn big numbers…..Lynn
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