Bailout Price Tag: $3.5T So Far, But 'Real' Cost May Be Much Higher

Cowboy says...all of this is going to cost the country dearly. Might seriously be time to begin looking for land in Mexico or Canada.

When is the goverment going to bail me out??????

Add that to the 4 TRILLION dollars the Bu5h war crimes have cost us. We're screwed and so are our grand kids! The outgoing admin is giving away the farm and the justice dept, legislature, and the white house is making it happen. USA Inc. is bankrupt.

Another Monday morning quarterback! Would like to see what you said a year back.

NICE legacy BUSH/CHENEY admin leave us with. They should have been IMPEACHED! Barack / Pelosi -- send them to jail !

Will the last person standing please turn out the lights?

Where does it end? Can any of this really work? I am not an econimist, hell cant even spell it. :-) But I am a business owner and I cannot for the life of me see how stemming these corrections will benifit the economy now or in 5 years. If someone can help me understand, I sure would appreciate it.

gee... not to forget the exec's bonuses, yeah the same ones who got us in this mess will have a great holiday whereas many of our fellow american TAXPAYERS won't even have a job anymore!!!!!! Is this comunism or what!?? All I know is that we aren't better than ANY banana republic when it comes to corruption, greed and FRAUD!!!

It is what it is.

It's a terrible situation. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't!

3.5 Trillion will seem CHEAP once the dust has settled and the real cost has been tallied a few years down the road

Get used to the term "Shared Sacrafice" for at least the next 4 years. Problem is, how much is there to share????

So let me get this straight...The government (which gets its money from Taxes) has given away 3.5 trillion in addition to the national debt and defficiet? I'm no genious but according to economics 101 if you just print money to hand away then the money becomes worthless. Or did I miss a class where this ever works? Bottom line is this...this is much worse then it appears. Because unless the entire globe is willing to forgive the USA it's debt there is no way this works. The numbers are to big. The US government with the 3.5 Trillion dollars could have given every man women and child in america over $10,000 each. Instead of giving it to it's people it took it. This on top of what is owed by the debt and now we are going to throw in Healthcare and all the other new programs as well? I remember a line from the movie Aliens by Bill paxton that applies here...."That's it man game over, game over"

The american economy is screwed to put it lightly! The worst is yet to come. Time to think about moving out!

The $2 Trillion in Emergency Fed Loans are short-term investments, almost all of which are collateralized or guaranteed by major central banks. You have to calculate a potential loss on these loans to come up with a taxpayer burden. Likewise, the majority of the $700 Billion in TARP fund is investments, predominantly sofar in the largest and best capitalized bank holding companies. This is NOT SPENDING, it is INVESTING in capital to improve the functioning of the domestic financial markets for businesses and consumers. So $2.7 Trillion of your $3.5 Billion is investing , not spending. A big difference. The money spent in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN over the last five years, IS GONE with no tangible return.

Bush and Cheney should be sentenced to go hunting with each other.

Problem with the BAIL OUT is a Catch 22 situation. If you DON'T bail out the MAJOR companies, the amount of JOBS lost will cripple the economy EVEN MORE than it is RIGHT NOW! But if you BAIL them out, then how long will the govt have to keep giving them money beofre the economy can sustain itself. If you let a company like GM fail, it will mean over 3 MILLION jobs lost. That means adding 3 MILLION more people to UNEMPLOYMENT in the American economy, and not paying TAXES and not being able to spend money on the economy. But the UNIONS are the problem for the AUTO makers!

It's a terrible situation. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't!

Execs did not get us into this mess. It's the US government who did this. They should all be impeached and tried for treason against the American people! That's the real solution. Forget about blaming AIG execs for having parties at resorts. It's who's in charge of giving funds (i.e. the US government) as to who is to blame. Go to the heart and source of the matter and stop blaming executives. I want the Fed to give people loans at the Fed Funds rate plus a risk premium, which would eliminate the margins most banks charge and leave more money in the pockets of the US taxpayer. This is taxpayer money after all, so why can't the taxpayer borrow against it? Yes, banks will fail due to this, but the taxpayer will be better off. Also, our economy would recover quickly. Imagine 5 year car loans at 2.75% and 30 year fixed mortgages at 4.5% for excellent credit borrowers.

Can the liberal haters get off the blame game? It's not like we had no congress and the Administration just "did this" to our government. All of the monies spent were approved by Congress, so focus on solutions rather than crying foul. I personally think that the government needs to get out of the bailout business now. This is clearly going to happen, and every time they say "bailout industry X" the markets take a dive. Let the dominoes fall and let's pick up afterward.