Just weeks after we were so concerned about 700 billion dollars in proposed bailouts, passed under threat of all kinds of dire consequences if we delayed, it looks like the number has now ballooned by 1,000% or so.

My first reaction to this news was hope that a committee of our representatives would have something to say on this, in terms of oversight at the very least. Then I remembered this part of Section 8 of the bailout bill:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

So we can ask all we want, but nobody really has to answer.

For perspective, 7.5 trillion is about half of the U.S. gross domestic product. For more perspective, as outlined in the article in the link above:

In comparison, the total U.S. cost of World War II adjusted for inflation was $3.6 trillion. The bailout will cost more than the total combined costs in today’s dollars of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the entire historical budget of NASA, including the moon landing…”

So what’s been the positive bailout-related impact in your life. Nothing? Maybe it’s too soon to ask. Okay then, based on what you’ve been told by your government, what real, practical impact can you expect for you and your family from this enormous expenditure, for which we’ll all be paying for generations?

Right. That’s what I thought.

But though CitiBank’s stock dropped from its 52-week high of $35.00 a share down to a last-week low of $3.77, and though they’ve shown over 50,000 employees the door so far during this crisis, and though they’re now one of the largest bailout beneficiaries so far, they’re still going to spend $400,000,000 with the Mets to put the Citi logo on a baseball stadium.

If you don’t get it either, don’t worry too much. I don’t think you’re supposed to.

-jh