TWENTY-FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS?!
Gut reaction to the numbers, courtesy of Karl Denninger
Ex-freaking-scuse me?
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."
A couple of market technicians have noted certain "patterns" in the market that have potential downside targets of zero. That sort of thing normally results in a loud guffaw from me – even though I’m bearish I’m not that bearish – I couldn’t imagine anything short of global thermonuclear war, ala "Joshua", that could lead to such an outcome.
Well I think I just found something purely economic that could lead to that outcome, and its right here.
Congress is all we have left – they need to take control of this problem right here and now, revoke the authorization for this ersatz spending commitment immediately, and appoint a whole passel of special prosecutors to start issuing indictments to everyone involved in this outrage.
We need cops and we need ’em right now before our creditors decide to cut off our credit card and destroy this nation’s economy and government – a decision that they could make literally at any time.
