The Bailout Is Bigger Than You Think And No One Is Paying Attention

If you think the $700 billion given to Secretary Paulson by the Congress was a lot of cash, then you'll be shocked to know how much our government is really coming up to bat for corporations with. The actual tab, when combined with loans, guarantees and other set ups is closer to five trillion, or to put it in long form, $5,000,000,000,000.00. That my friends (sorry for the McCain reference) is a incredible amount of money. Especially because the people who pay most of the taxes really do not see much of it. The way it breaks down is pretty simple.

From Forbes:

The Fed has taken on much of that total, including lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility, a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made available.

The Fed also took on tens of billions in debt, including $29 billion in debt of Bear Stearns, and made $60 billion of credit available to American International Group (nyse: AIG - news - people ). It is committing $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to manage some of AIG's residential mortgage-backed securities, and it is financing $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps.

The Treasury, in addition to the $700 billion raised in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, agreed to guarantee money market funds against losses up to $50 billion, will inject $40 billion of capital into AIG and is backing the conservatorship of Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), to the tune of $200 billion.

The FDIC, meanwhile, is guaranteeing $1.5 trillion of senior unsecured bank debt.

And there's more to that as well, but you can start by digesting those numbers. The truth is we are dropping ridiculous sums of money in these institutions and have very little to show for it. The markets are still unhappy and fears of a long recession just make things worse. The way Wall Street has fiscally managed itself (basically no management to be seen) has had a detrimental effect on us all and what is worst of all is that Congress is doing next to nothing to make sure what they have given Paulson has worked.

Literally speaking, no oversight positions have been filled and $290 billion has already been spent out of the bailout. Many of us on the left (and yes, the conservative right too) screamed and shouted to take it easy and not act in such a brash manner that gave Paulson and Bush everything he wanted. The conditions that precipitated this collapse have been formed over many years and taking a few extra weeks would have been just fine. Now we are still in a large mess with nothing to show for the billions spent. Soon we'll be wishing for this to only cost five trillion dollars and not whatever astronomical figure it eventually ends up being.