What America's "bank bailout" is really costing taxpayers

How much so far? Try $2.5 trillion.

Here's how BailoutSleuth comes up with its total:

• $170 billion for banks who sold preferred stock to the government
• $150 billion given to AIG -- $85 billion initially, another $25 billion, and another $40 billion
  
• $2 trillion in emergency loans from the Federal Reserve to banks under 11 different programs that are separate from the TARP program, and which didn't require approval by Congress

Disappointment over bailout plan triggers global sell-off

Closings for key Asia-Pacific stock markets. Global stock markets reeled Monday, as panicked investors scurried for cover on fears that a much-vaunted US finance sector bailout will fail to end a crippling credit crisis. (AFP Graphic)

"People are panicked that their bank is going to go out of business. People have just lost a lot of trust in the financial system and in these large institutions," said Anil Kashyap, professor of economics and finance at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. He suggested the crisis has morphed from a near shutdown in lending to a new, more dangerous phase in which financial and other companies face greater chances of insolvency.

Bailout bill could cost US taypayers $1.8 Trillion

Last week, the Bush administration proposed a three-page bill to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. It died in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week. On Friday, though, the House approved a far bigger, broader, and beefier version of the bill--which has ballooned to a remarkable 442 pages. The vote was 263 to 171, with the bulk of the opposition coming from Republicans. Because the Senate already approved the measure, it immediately went to President Bush, who signed it into law.

Stocks drop on economic concerns despite bailout

Wall Street ended its worst week in seven years with another tumble on Friday on fears that the $700 billion financial rescue package may not unblock credit markets and stave off a U.S. recession. REUTERS/Graphics

Financial stocks, which had traded sharply higher on the expectation the bill would be passed, fell after the House vote. Traders cited profit-taking and said the market was now focusing on the tough economic road still ahead and on how the bill will be implemented.

Congress OKs historic bailout bill

US Republican Representative from Florida Adam Putnam (C) speaks to the press with House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (L) and Minority Leader John Boehner after a Republican party conference meeting at the US Capitol in Washington. The US House of Representatives Friday comfortably passed a revised 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout, bowing to intense pressure to help avert an economic meltdown. (AFP/Nicholas Kamm)

The final vote was 263-171 in the House, a comfortable margin that was 58 more votes than the measure garnered in Monday's stunning defeat. The vote capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by daily warnings that the country confronted the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act.

Top 10 tax sweeteners in bailout bill

The following are some of the top tax sweeteners in the Senate passed Bailout Bill. Not all the provisions are per se outrageous, but collectively are intended to help Congressional leadership get final passage of the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

US financial crisis causes spike in online anti-Semitism

The US financial crisis has provoked an outpouring of anti-Semitism on the Internet, with Jews being blamed for the debacle on Wall Street, a monitoring group said on Thursday.

• "The age-old canards about Jews and money are always just beneath the surface," said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which fights anti-semitism.
  

Mr. Foxman, you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Do you really think all of the American people are blind?

Senate to vote on financial rescue plan Wednesday

US Senator Kent Conrad(C) talks with reporters outside the Senate Chamber the day after the House defeated a 700 USD billion emergency rescue for the nation's financial system, ignoring urgent warnings from President Bush and congressional leaders of both parties that the economy could nosedive without it. (AFP/Tim Sloan)

Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell say, however, that they're going to add a tax cut package already rejected by the House on Monday.

Where did the $700B figure come from?

You know where that very important $700-billion figure came from?

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday - see this Forbes article. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

They made it up to be sufficiently ginormous to frighten everyone into rapid action. And it worked. --- Andrew Malcolm

You know, it's kinda, sorta like, the 6 million holocaust number....

White House, lawmakers plan new bailout deal

Top congressional and White House officials, stunned when the House rejected a massive rescue plan for the nation's economy, scrambled to structure a new bailout proposal that would attract reluctant lawmakers and still soothe the unnerved financial markets.

"Doing nothing is not an option," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said after seeing the $700 billion emergency package for the nation's financial systems fail 228-205 on Monday.

For once, Congress heard as voters protested bailout plan

Almost until the early afternoon vote Monday on the financial rescue plan, voters bombarded congressional offices, protesting almost in unison: Don't bail out renegade financial executives and companies.

House votes down massive bailout measure

"Many of us feel that the national interest requires us to do something which is, in many ways, unpopular," said Rep. Barney Frank, the Financial Services Committee chairman. Frank was a key leader in negotiating the deal over the bailout.

The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry. Stocks started plummeting on Wall Street even before 228-205 to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.

Sold to US taxpayers for $700B: banks' bad assets

What started as a fairly simple three-page proposal giving the Treasury Secretary unchecked power to orchestrate a bailout of the country's financial system ended up as a complex rescue package, with enhanced congressional oversight, some added protections for taxpayers and a slap on the wrist to highly paid, underperforming executives.

$700B rescue plan finalized; House to vote Monday

The plan, bollixed up for days by election-year politics, would give the administration broad power to use taxpayers' money to purchase billions upon billions of home mortgage-related assets held by cash-starved financial firms.

Tenative deal reached on financial markets bailout

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight but said it still has to be put on paper.

Democrats claim Wall St. bailout breakthrough

"We now have between House and Senate Democrats an agreement on what we think should be in the bill, and we have a meeting scheduled at 10 a.m. tomorrow to meet with the Republicans," said Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

China banks told to halt lending to US banks

Chinese regulators have told domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

Bush warns of "long and painful recession"

U.S. President George W. Bush delivers a nationally televised address from the White House to discuss a $700 billion financial rescue plan that he feels is needed to shore up the U.S. economy, in this frame grab taken in Washington on September 24, 2008. (Reuters/White House Television)

His dire warning came not long after the president issued extraordinary invitations to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, one of whom will inherit the mess in four months, as well as key congressional leaders to a White House meeting on Thursday to work on a compromise.

Okay, so either Bush is lying to us now or he was lying to us last week when he said the "fundamentals of the economy were sound." Of course, there is a third possibility - that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about...

Democratic leaders ask for a smaller bailout

Under the plan, which is still emerging, Congress would approve a fraction of what President Bush is asking for — perhaps $150 billion or $200 billion — to allow the government to begin rescuing tottering financial companies.

Congress, Bush team agree on some bailout terms

Scrambling for a quick accord on the $700 billion bailout, the Bush administration and leading lawmakers have agreed to include mortgage aid and strong congressional oversight along with unprecedented help for failing financial institutions, a key lawmaker said Monday.

Kicking and screaming I might add...