From Denninger's Market Ticker:***
Barofsky said that while the TARP program that Congress passed amounts to $700 billion, the total federal government support since 2007 for the economy and the financial sector could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion. The government has committed significantly more money through a variety of other federal agencies and programs.
WHAT?!
$23.7 trillion dollars?
Where was the Congressional appropriation for that?
This is blatantly unconstitutional, folks. We're talking about nearly double the nation's GDP in debt commitments and more than 33 times the amount authorized by Congress.
Oh, and it gets worse:
Meanwhile, Barofsky's office has opened 35 criminal and civil investigations into issues including suspected accounting fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, mortgage servicer misconduct, mortgage fraud, public corruption, false statements and taxes.
That's right, we have 35 criminal investigations connected to this nearly $24 trillion dollars of largesse too, and that's only what Mr. Barofsky knows about. Anyone care to gander about what's hidden from him? Oh wait - we got a problem there too:
"Treasury’s continued unwillingness to provide basic transparency despite the many recommendations of SIGTARP and Congress and the repeated demonstration that meaningful data from TARP recipients can be gathered and easily disseminated is unacceptable," said a memo prepared by Republicans on the oversight committee.
Hello Richard Nixon! Bailoutgate anyone? Obstruction?
Shall we continue?
This is outrageous and threatens the very stability of our nation. How anyone can believe our banking system or indeed our nation's Treasury can survive the exposure of $24 trillion dollars, twice our GDP, is beyond me.
We most certainly cannot, and when (not if) our creditors and lenders, including China and Japan, wise up to what's going on here the game will quite literally be over, perhaps as soon as "right now"...
***Read the rest.
Alea iacta est.
UPDATE 1915 edst 7/21/09: Read the entire follow-on article by Denninger, which included this direct link to the IG's report and this table:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?Who will guard the guardians?
Well I'm not paying that shit back!
ReplyDeleteIn fact I suggest we repudiate all the debt we owe those crooks-enough people do that and grow the balls to back it up...
Read this:
http://freedomguide.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/debt-repudiation-its-time-to-free-yourselves-from-fraud/
The screw is far too small, my friend. I don't think they make one big enough for $24T.
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ReplyDeleteFrom the AP: "Barofsky's $23.7 trillion estimate represents the maximum exposure that the government would face if all eligible applicants requested the maximum assistance at the same time."
ReplyDeleteThere is a big difference between a $24t net loss and a potential to spend $24t over a period of time.
The figure also assumes that all potentially troubled assets are simultaneously purchased by the government at face value and immediately sold for $0.
When including the funds already repaid plus returns on investment, the actual net cost of the TARP program is currently projected between $141b (Whitehouse) and $159b (CBO).
If AIG recovers, we'll get back another $62b. If GM and Chrysler recover, we'll get back a little more.