The Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) are whining to the government that they need money too, in the amount of $34 Billion. Heck, what’s a few billion here and there. It’s less than a penny when you look at the whole bailout package totaling nearly $8 TRILLION dollars. Can you say government usurpation of private industry. Let’s tally up all of the bailouts recently from the Treasury Department, FHA, FDIC and Federal Reserve combined together:
$50 Billion – Treasury Exchange Stabilization Fund (to moderate fluctuation in currency rates)
$29 Billion – Tax breaks for Banks
$168 Billion – Stimulus Package
$200 Billion – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
$306 Billion – Citigroup (loan guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets)
$20 Billion – Citigroup (injection because their stock fell 60% in one week)
$700 Billion – Trouble Asset Relief Program
$300 Billion – ‘Hope for Homeowers’ Program (loan guarantees for struggling borrowers)
$1.4 TRILLION – FDIC Liquidity Guarantees (guarantees bank-to-bank loans)
$139 Billion – Loan Guarantee to lending arm of General Electric
$1.8 TRILLION – Net Paper Corporation Paper Funding (purchases short-term debt)
$900 Billion – Term Auction Facility (banks get loans up to 28 days by posting collateral)
$540 Billion – Money Market Investor Funding Facility
$250 Billion – Term Securities Lending (primary deals borrow by posting collateral)
$122.8 Billion – Loan to American International Group (AIG)
$92.6 Billion – Lending program for commercial banks
$29 Billion – Engineer the takeover of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase
TOTAL: Nearly $8 TRILLION
This makes President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s ($500 Billion when adjusted for inflation) look pathetic compared to what the government is doing now. For comparison purposes, the bailout (so far), comes to about $25,000 per man, woman, and child in the United States. This bailout would better perk up the economy if the government just sent out checks to the American people. A family of four would receive a check for $100,000. Imagine the economic boom then!
For further the perspective, the entire cost of the Vietnam War (inflation adjusted) was only $700 Billion. So, tell me, in what way will inventing more debt and money through government bailouts help us all to get out of debt? We would eventually have to start trading debt as currency. Hmmm…isn’t that what banks do? And isn’t it the banks that got us into this mess? It appears that the Federal Reserve has a hidden agenda in all of this.
Conclusion: Let the companies that screw up be able to fail. I have attempted many business endeavors and startup companies through my years. Did they all succeed? Definitely not. Probably less than 5% actually were profitable. I didn’t whine to the government to hand me money because my business failed. I got up off my butt and did something about it. Let the free market correct itself just as individuals do. Failure is a necessity in learning to be successful!
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[...] Even before Obama took office as president, the Treasury Department, FHA, FDIC and Federal Reserve combined together have nearly $8 trillion in bailouts. [...]