total bailout 5 trillion

The total potential cost of the financial bailout to the U.S. taxpayer is already rapidly approaching $5 trillion, over seven times as much as the meaningless $700 billion bailout bill figure.

Analysts have previously marked out the $5 trillion figure as the actual cost, now those predictions are becoming demonstratively accurate.

Meanwhile, Hank Paulson has defended government intervention, stating “There’s no doubt that the way to get the maximum bang for the taxpayers here was to invest in banks.”

Based on this Reuters summary and the sources linked within the table, here is a breakdown of the bailout’s cost to taxpayers so far.
Bailout Type Cost To Taxpayers
Pelosi’s latest economic-stimulus package
$300 billion
Paulson’s Bank Nationalization package
$250billion
Bailout to the American car companies
$25 billion
Nancy Pelosi’s bailout of the state and local governments
$150 billion
Financial “bailout” bill
$700 billion+
Bear Stearns financing
$29 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization
$200 billion
AIG loan and nationalization
$85 billion (+ extra request of $35 billion)
Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill
$300 billion
Mortgage community grants
$4 billion
JPMorgan Chase repayments
$87 billion
Loans to banks via Fed’s Term Auction Facility
$200 billion+
Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund
$50 billion
Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie/Freddie
$144 billion
POSSIBLE TOTAL $2.56 trillion+
NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS PER
U.S. CENSUS 105,480,101
POSSIBLE COST PER HOUSEHOLD
$24,269

In addition, the U.S. government has said it will temporarily guarantee $1.5 trillion (£856 billion) in new senior debt issued by banks, as well as insure $500 billion (£285 billion) in deposits in non-interest accounts, mainly used by businesses.

These figures take the potential cost to $4.559 trillion+ - or $43, 221 per household.

Furthermore, when you account for the fact that the credit default swap market is around $62 trillion, and that derivatives worldwide are worth between between $1 and $2 quadrillion, the numbers start to become meaningless.