Bailouts

The Anglo Irish Bank of Dublin failed last year. The bank had lent a lot of money to builders in the boom early this century, contributing to successive years of 6% GDP growth, and references to Ireland as a Celtic Tiger. But of course, commercial property values have fallen now almost by half, and loans aren't being repaid, and the bank's gone bust. The government estimates cost of a bailout at 30 billion dollars. Hmmm, Ireland has 4 million people. That's $7,500 for every man woman and child in the country.

The quoted cost of the TARP to date is 306 billion dollars, with 513 having been loaned out and 207 having been repaid. The TARP money didnt include the bailouts of the mortgage giants Fannie May and Fredddie Mac which are estimated at another 126 billion. So, not including whatever shady deals the Fed is managing, bailouts of financial industry has cost $431 billion. The US populatiom is just over 300 million, so the per capita cost to date 1s $1,435.

Neither of these numbers include other stimulus or welfare costs.

Aren't you glad you're nor Irish?

I wonder how to compute the cost for Icelanders, since the government couldn't bail out the biggest banks and let them go into receivership. Four or five big banks there were paying close to 10%, drawing deposits from around the world to make risky loans. Of couse the loans went bad and the banks failed. The government deposit insurance was supposed to reimburse depositor losses in excess of $22,000, but just paying off foreign depositors would cost the men women and children of the population of 300,000 $16,000 each, a hefty sum considering the Icelanders have already had their savings wiped out by the bank failures. The Icelandic government has said it would try to pay off the foreign depositors when it is able, but doesn't sound very hopeful. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of anything Icelanders have to sell except herring, and they have to import everything else.
Maybe they could organize an ad campaign like Chick-Filet, with the cows holding signs that say "Eat More Herring"