Financial
Crisis Tab
Already In
The
Trillions
By
CNBC.com |
November 18,
2008 "CNBC"
-November
17, 2008 --
Given
the speed at
which the
federal
government
is throwing
money at the
financial
crisis, the
average
taxpayer,
never mind
member of
Congress,
might not be
faulted for
losing
track.
CNBC,
however, has
been paying
very close
attention
and keeping
a running
tally of
actual
spending as
well as the
commitments
involved.
Try $4.28
trillion
dollars.
That's
$4,284,500,000,000
and more
than what
was spent on
WW II, if
adjusted for
inflation,
based on our
computations
from a
variety of
estimates
and
sources*.
Not only is it a astronomical amount of money, its' a complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other offices of government taken over roughly the last year, based on government data and news releases. Strictly speaking, not every cent is a direct result of what's called the financial crisis, but it is arguably related to it.
Some 68-percent of the sum falls under the Federal Reserve's umbrella, while another 16 percent is the under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, as defined under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, signed into law in early October. (The TARP alone is bigger than virtually any other US government endeavor dating back to the Louisiana Purchase. See slideshow.)
|
Financial Crisis Balance Sheet
|
| Government Entity | Sum in Billions of Dollars |
| Federal Reserve | |
| (TAF) Term Auction Facility | 900 |
| Discount Window Lending | |
| Commercial Banks | 99.2 |
| Investment Banks | 56.7 |
| Loans to buy ABCP | 76.5 |
| AIG | 112.5 |
| Bear Stearns | 29.5 |
| (TSLF) Term Securities Lending Facility | 225 |
| Swap Lines | 613 |
| (MMIFF) Money Market Investor Funding Facility | 540 |
| Commercial Paper Funding Facility | 257 |
| (TARP) Treasury Asset Relief Program | 700 |
| Other: | |
| Automakers | 25 |
| (FHA) Federal Housing Administration | 300 |
| Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac | 350 |
| Total | 4284.5 |
|
Note: Figures as of Nov. 13, 2008
|
*References includ US National Archive, US Dept of Defense, US Bureau of Reclamation, Library of Congress, NASA, Panama Canal Authority, FDIC, Brittanica, WSJ, Time, CNN.com, and a number of other websites.
(Editor's Note: CNBC's Steve Liesman and Sabrina Korber have been keeping a runny tally of the government's efforts, while Sean Entwistle, Yolaiki Gonzalez, Giovanny Moreano and Ariel Nelson researched and computed the data for the comparisons with other major historical events in the slideshow.)
