What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street? Try a number north of $30 trillion. (The awful math is detailed below.) That's why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were so scared last week. And, yes, I think "scared" isn't too strong a word. You don't think they convened an emergency nighttime meeting of congressional leaders and then walked out with something close to a blank check for a trillion bucks because they thought we were headed for an outright recession, even a fairly nasty one?
Emphasis added by me.
"Scared?" Hahahaha. Try liquid shits!
2) Scenario 2: Great Depression 2.0. The economy shrinks by 25 percent over four years, or $3.2 trillion, plus $1.1 trillion in lost opportunity growth. Economic cost: $4.3 trillion. The market falls two thirds from its peak, losing $7 trillion in value from its current level, plus $3 trillion from not getting a rebound. Stock market cost: $10 trillion. Housing falls an additional $10 trillion from current levels, plus the lost opportunity of $2.5 trillion from a rebound. Housing cost: $12.5 trillion. Total four-year financial and economic cost of doing nothing: $26.8 trillion.
That is still so, so low!
Because that's just America (and even then, it's still too damned low!).
What about the entire EU bloc, the Asian bloc, the South American bloc? There'd be trillions and trillions and trillions to add up there too.
Until those blocs finally ask the question We Don't Want Them To Ask.
Flashback to my post of January 13, 2008: The Future Of The U.S. Economy In One Picture
All Chronicles of Depression 2.0 posts. Read them now!
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