Britannia Radio

From the blog of Barry Ritholtz (http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/):


Big Bailouts, Bigger Bucks
By Barry Ritholtz - November 25th, 2008

Whenever I discussed the current bailout situation with people, I find
they have a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. That
became a problem while doing the research for the Bailout Nation book.
I needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165
trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large
numbers, so let's give this some context. The current Credit Crisis
bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers.
The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government
expenditures – combined:

- Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost:
$115.3 billion
- Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost:
$217 billion
- Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost:
$237 billion
- S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256
billion
- Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
- The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost:
$500 billion (Est)
- Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
- Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698
billion
- NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

data courtesy of Bianco Research

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.

The only single American event in history that even comes close to
matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost:
$288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion

The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion
dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World
War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for
inflation (original cost was $288 billion).

Go figure: WWII was a relative bargain.

I estimate that by the time we get through 2010, the final bill may
scale up to as much as $10 trillion dollars…

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/big-bailouts-bigger-bucks/