" . . . estimating the $700 billion effort to shore up the nation's wobbly banking system could end up costing taxpayers as much as $23.7 trillion . . ."

July 21, 2009 2:25 AM

"Many banks were concerned about business-sensitive information and requested confidentiality of individual survey responses. Accordingly, pursuant to our legal obligations, SIGTARP is unable in this report to attribute any results or comments to a specific institution. However, SIGTARP is in the process of evaluating recipients’ claims of confidentiality and will provide copies of the individual responses that will include information provided by the banks to the maximum permitted by law. SIGTARP plans to post the responses, redacted as necessary, on its website within 30 days." TARP special inspector general Neil Barofsky
posted by RoseyD (12 comments total)

This makes sense. They must prevent specific panic against certain banks. In exchange, we get widespread low-grade vague panic.

I'm hoping they refer to the banks by their initials and birthdays, so we can figure it out easily.
posted by rokusan at 2:39 AM on July 21 [1 favorite]

This isn't the way my credit rating works.
posted by srboisvert at 2:48 AM on July 21

could end up costing taxpayers as much as $23.7 trillion

what
posted by Avenger at 2:52 AM on July 21

That $23.7 trillion estimate is wildly overblown, Avenger. According to the New York Times:

It includes estimates of the maximum cost of programs that have already been canceled or that never got under way.

It also assumes that every home mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac goes into default, and all the homes turn out to be worthless. It assumes that every bank in America fails, with not a single asset worth even a penny. And it assumes that all of the assets held by money market mutual funds, including Treasury bills, turn out to be worthless.

It would also require the Treasury itself to default on securities purchased by the Federal Reserve system.

So basically, for those costs to be realized, the U.S. economy would not merely have to collapse, but eat itself, shit itself out, and re-eat its own self-shit (to quote America: The Book).
posted by Rhaomi at 3:01 AM on July 21 [2 favorites]

Yeh, we've been messing about with this data, and since its been posted to MeFi I'll give you folks some of the information in far a more useful form.

The google docs spreadsheet details the institution, how much they received and the date. Effectively, it should be the same as Table Five, Appendix D - CPP Survey Recipients in the pdf.

A few notes that may be of interest - if you take the spreadsheet and cross reference to intended purpose of the money, enrich with ticker symbols of interest (I don't really like common myself, preferring higher yielding debt issued by the various institutions) and, of course, market prices you just might find something valuable.

The pdf presentation is atrocious and, in my view, does nothing but prevent most folks from doing their own analysis for various ends. You can guess mine intention from the paragraph above, but I can think of many other, far nobler uses. Just wish I had time.

Hope this helps someone!
posted by Mutant at 3:26 AM on July 21 [4 favorites]

I think the $23.7 trillion figure is to help emphasize that, like in poker, this round of betting is "all in." Fascinating . . .
posted by RoseyD at 3:39 AM on July 21

For those costs to be realized, the U.S. economy would not merely have to collapse, but eat itself, shit itself out, and re-eat its own self-shit.

So we're halfway home, then? Wooo-hooo!
posted by rokusan at 3:56 AM on July 21

Audit the FED?
posted by RoseyD at 4:21 AM on July 21

C'mon Mutant, just tell me what to buy ;)
posted by diogenes at 6:34 AM on July 21 [1 favorite]

Well, the 23.7 trillion number is clearly a wild exaggeration. Hyperbole used to illustrate the serious nature of the issue. Get us over the sticker-shock.

I recall the estimated total global cost last year at what, 55 trillion? A number so large it was laughable.

Even at much, much lower costs, we would be looking seriously at letting the system fail. We will be lining the bankers up against walls and shooting them - I mean this seriously - before we start dropping tens of trillions of dollars on Wall Street and The Banks.
posted by Xoebe at 8:31 AM on July 21

clearly a wild exaggeration

Neil takes great umbridge with that today.
posted by RoseyD at 8:40 AM on July 21

SIGTARP? They have UNIX kernel guys running this now?

killall -HUP american_economyd

That ought to do it.
posted by GuyZero at 10:20 AM on July 21 [1 favorite]