Ethics

Cost of Bailout Passes $5 Trillion

By Ed Brayton

The $700 billion bailout plan is turning out to be a drop in the bucket compared to the full cost of the government's attempts to rescue the failing financial sector. Forbes reports:

For all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to the credit crisis.

According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).