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Follow the Money - Matt Bivens at Tom Dispatch
Matt Bivens is in his intern year at a Harvard-affiliated emergency medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a former editor of the Moscow Times who lived for years in Russia, and who covered the war in Chechnya for the Los Angeles Times. His journalism has appeared in Harper's, Playboy, the Nation, and many other publications.
There are many possible responses to the news that we have committed more than four trillion public dollars to Wall Street.
Mine is a roar of admiration.
Four trillion dollars! Holy hell! I didn't even know that was possible!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
After all, the cost of World War II in inflation-adjusted dollars was $4 trillion. This bailout thing is just getting started, and already we've burned through that.
Without even noticing.
Certainly without rationing sugar or collecting scrap rubber or any of that nonsense.
Who's the Greatest Generation now, baby?
Admit it. You feel it too. Just imagine someone snatching your laptop off a table and throwing it, Olympic-discus style, hundreds... and hundreds... and hundreds of feet. Sure, you'd be upset (and stuck with the bill). But however briefly, you'd feel admiration for the physical feat: Look at that thing fly!
So it goes with our bailouts, wild tax cuts, and war budgets. The money in play is staggering, but everyone acts like that's something to mope about. Where's the excitement?
Often, after reading an incomprehensible dollar figure, I'll Google "What does a trillion dollars look like?" to get myself fired up. One example of where this takes you shows a million dollars (pathetic, wouldn't fill a grocery bag), a billion (interesting, I could fit it in a truck), and then a trillion. (Wow, it spreads for acres! Look at that tiny human included for scale!)
It turns out that the United States can pick up that sort of weight and just smash it down on whatever the hell we want. Like Optimus Prime with giant square green paper fists. Slam! Slam!
Yet we've committed not one trillion dollars to the incompetent and/or corrupt, but more than four trillion dollars. That's according to a report to Congress from special inspector general Neil Barofsky, the overseer of the bank bailout program.
Technically, Barofsky adds, Wall Street's IOU to you and me is at about three trillion dollars these days, since some of it's been paid back. Relieved? Don't be. As these tsunamis of public wealth pour out, ignore the slosh and focus on the order of magnitude. The entire Gross Domestic Product -- the number reflecting all wealth generated in this nation for this year -- is only $14.1 trillion. So whether the sum of our money that's now their money is $3 trillion (1/5th of all wealth generated in America in a year) or $4.7 trillion (1/3rd of all wealth generated in America in a year), it still means that, for a big chunk of the year, every single one of us was working for Goldman Sachs et al.
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Mine is a roar of admiration.
Four trillion dollars! Holy hell! I didn't even know that was possible!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
After all, the cost of World War II in inflation-adjusted dollars was $4 trillion. This bailout thing is just getting started, and already we've burned through that.
Without even noticing.
Certainly without rationing sugar or collecting scrap rubber or any of that nonsense.
Who's the Greatest Generation now, baby?
Admit it. You feel it too. Just imagine someone snatching your laptop off a table and throwing it, Olympic-discus style, hundreds... and hundreds... and hundreds of feet. Sure, you'd be upset (and stuck with the bill). But however briefly, you'd feel admiration for the physical feat: Look at that thing fly!
So it goes with our bailouts, wild tax cuts, and war budgets. The money in play is staggering, but everyone acts like that's something to mope about. Where's the excitement?
Often, after reading an incomprehensible dollar figure, I'll Google "What does a trillion dollars look like?" to get myself fired up. One example of where this takes you shows a million dollars (pathetic, wouldn't fill a grocery bag), a billion (interesting, I could fit it in a truck), and then a trillion. (Wow, it spreads for acres! Look at that tiny human included for scale!)
It turns out that the United States can pick up that sort of weight and just smash it down on whatever the hell we want. Like Optimus Prime with giant square green paper fists. Slam! Slam!
Yet we've committed not one trillion dollars to the incompetent and/or corrupt, but more than four trillion dollars. That's according to a report to Congress from special inspector general Neil Barofsky, the overseer of the bank bailout program.
Technically, Barofsky adds, Wall Street's IOU to you and me is at about three trillion dollars these days, since some of it's been paid back. Relieved? Don't be. As these tsunamis of public wealth pour out, ignore the slosh and focus on the order of magnitude. The entire Gross Domestic Product -- the number reflecting all wealth generated in this nation for this year -- is only $14.1 trillion. So whether the sum of our money that's now their money is $3 trillion (1/5th of all wealth generated in America in a year) or $4.7 trillion (1/3rd of all wealth generated in America in a year), it still means that, for a big chunk of the year, every single one of us was working for Goldman Sachs et al.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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