And then there are the Credit Default Swaps that the government has guaranteed. the total liablilty of this guarantee is unknown, but has been put as high as $65 Trillion. But that's old (and "forgotten") news.

since many of these CDS were bought to bet that USAns would have their mortgages foreclosed upon, how much of the current budget is going to pay out these CDS?
after all look at the foreclosure rate, lots of CDS should be being claimed.

This implies that the banks will take back their junk collateral, you know, the same kind of collateral banks accept when ordinary people apply for a loan.

Also, please don't forget that the banks extorted the FASB to change the accounting rules eliminating mark to market.

--------This means that trillions of dollars of worthless loans on the bank's balance sheet are being masked.--------

If the banks were forced to correctly value these turds at zero cents on the dollar EVERY MAJOR BANK WOULD BE INSOLVENT.--------

This accounting trick alone is a benefit to the banks worth untold trillions of dollars.--------

And as GottaGetOffTheGrid mentions don't forget about the quadrillion dollars worth of CDS which would be triggered if the biggest wall street casinos were forced into insolvency.--------1.5 trillion dollars is a gross underestimate of the amount owed.

What's a few trillion amongst friends?
Instead of bemoaning them, you should consider sharing their sacrifice.

Par for the plutocratic course. They make a big noise about the world ending if they don't get 700 billion (Paulson), they get it and while the US Treasury is making lots of hand signals with the TARP funds (you saw how small it looks on the graph and you remember what a "big deal" it was according to the media), the Federal Reserve proceeds to loan at 0% (massively inflating the currency on behalf of the rich and to the detriment through buying power erosion of the poor and middle class)16 trillion according to the audit forced on the Federal Reserve by the Sanders/Paul/Kucinich sponsored Bill and performed by the GAO.

And that is above and beyond the 14 trillion dollar Federal debt.

These crooks never stop their shell games. Everything we were told about US finances and debt for the last 11 years has been one lie after another.

agelbert:

As I recall, most of that $16 TRILLION from the "audit" was simply handed out to foreign banks, corporations, individuals, and governments without any mention of that money being paid back.

Why in the world aren't the mortgage companies and banks forced to use those gifts from the government to pay off every under-water mortgage and mortgages 3 or more months behind in payments?

That would get all the "bad" loans off their books and prevent more and more citizens from ending up homeless and living on the street. And, if this is correct, the banksters would not be able to continue pretending that they need yet more bailout money.

Government is a dependent institution! Many do agree. The Media, complex as they turn out to be in our times, could do more to help this dependent institution, more-so thinking about the people and less about special interests. We know many of the varieties of capitalist systems around the world. Of-course, each has own crisis experience. Many are disappointed, large though the US is], that cues of the experiences seem to mean nothing there. Frankly therefore what is seen from that part of the Atlantic is becoming more and more frightening. Defenders are using the MEDIA to make people understand less, sadly because they fail to see systems in similar problems that eventually get their forces together to solve them, though one can argue that all is not yet overboard. But it is getting late!

Bailing out banks and corporations in deeply-rooted capitalistic system is no little thing to easily and quickly decipher or apportion blames, except if one ignores or drops history and unfathomable weight of the challenges at the time of change of administration. When one looks at the length of life of the new administration, in fact, one with the right mind sees "ulterior" motives pampered by some Media.

How is a system in crisis that learns from own mistake to truly rework its welfare policies: "make people not live in streets, go unemployed, and starve"? Should all of the rescued banks and corporations have been ignored, it is that same class of "well to dos" that would have bought them "cheap and turned" them into their own "private-wealth-banks", gaining yet more "power" in a system driven by 'lusts' for wealth and "naive": negative rather than positive political power uses.

Where therefore are we, and what are we hiding as the peoples are told 'stories' of problems and failures. Why are people not properly told about the gaps in the country's political morale? Why are the political parties and their roles not really well and critically explained to the people?.. The graphs and statistics do speak but they do not impress or convince many of the people seeing what they keep seeing in that model of capitalism --- working more and more to drain all hopes and trusts and ruin democracy as an abstract function of solidarity: "give", "take" and "live together". Hidden ideological motives behind the paper do much to help flaw its objectivity hence perpetuate the aphorism "no news is good news", for the time being.

Things have gone wrong and everyone is crying in and out of America, in case the world faces a second dip from a "tormenting" economic depression. To try to take time to decorate what has been shortsightedly done remedies nothing, more-so, if people are informed the way they are informed -- pushing blames and not saying who real culprit of the 'blamed' is, at least against ragging talks about party politics and a destructive third party syndrome in an effort to give party politics in the country a "multi-party" look.

NOTE: the text is written in paragraphs, but someone where I can't see decides to lump-up all, that it be tiring to read. It is not the work of this commentator!