

700 Billion Dollars - astrec
http://www.canucklehead.ca/blog/700_billion_dollars.html

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stevedekorte
$700B is the tip of the iceberg. With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, US taxpayers
are now on the hook for paying off $5T in mortgage bonds. And add to that the
unknowns on AIG's balance sheet which may run into the trillions as well.

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tomsaffell
Not really a fair comparison - the 700BB is not being _spent_ in the consumer
sense of the word. It is being used largely for investing (albeit sometimes in
toxic assets). Those may _in time_ deliver a return.

I'm not saying it's the best (or only) thing that could have been done, but
buying McDonalds pies it is not.

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stevedekorte
The government is buying overpriced assets (mortgage bonds on homes bought for
2x the inflation adjusted norms and corporate junk bonds) whose market value
has dropped so much that they made the balance sheets of financial companies
negative. Their solution was to move them to the public's balance sheet.
Perhaps the real asset prices will rise and the financial companies will be
wishing they didn't sell, but who are we kidding? The folks on Wall Street
will be vacationing on their super yatchs as the American taxpayer is buried
in the debt of their bad investments.

