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Comment by j_baker | Hacker News Reader

Our deficit is $14.6 trillion. TARP, which cost ~$80 billion (with still more to be paid back), is a rounding error in that deficit. Changing tax rates would have a much bigger impact on the deficit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program#P...

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> Our deficit is $14.6 trillion.

Just in the interest of precision: it's actually our national debt which is approximately 14.6 trillion. Our deficit this year will be closer to 1.5T.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12039

Not that they aren't both mind-boggling numbers

I was thinking about the cumulative 10-year deficit. I swear I've heard the number $14.6 trillion somewhere, but maybe I'm thinking of the debt. At any rate, I wasn't that far off. From the link you gave:

By 2021, the budget deficit would be about double the baseline projection, and with cumulative deficits totaling nearly $12 trillion over the 2012–2021 period, debt held by the public would reach 97 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1946.

Adding in this year's deficit, it comes out to $13.5 trillion.

You're confusing deficit and debt.

TARP is a rounding error all right--compared to the $16 trillion the Federal Reserve has provided to private banks behind the scenes. TARP was just political theater.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/21/audit-fed-gave-16-tril...

No. This thread is a font of misinformation. The Federal Reserve lent $16 trillion in total transactions at the primary credit interest rate to banks over years worth of time. This number is clearly cited to provoke populist rage but is completely ridiculous when analyzed intellectually.

Look, consider this analogous situation. You're having trouble meeting your short term debts but had a solid line of income so you come to me and say, "I need $10 for lunch today but I can pay you from my paycheck at the of the day." I know you have a job and confirm your paycheck so I say, "OK. I'll lend you the money." So Monday comes and goes and you pay me back. Now, times are tough so you have to do this for a full 2 weeks before you can get back on your feet. During this time I lent you $10 on Monday, got payed back on Monday, $10 on Tuesday, etc. At the end of the two weeks would it be accurate to say I lent out $100? No, because I only really lent out $10 at a time. In fact, I really just lent out the same $10 ten times.

This is exactly the same situation. The $16 trillion is in total amount of money lent but it doesn't actually reflect any amount of money lent at any given time.

What on earth are you talking about? Where did I or the article claim anything about amounts lent at any given time? A total of ~$16 trillion was secretly lent to failing financial institutions at extremely low rates over 3 years. That's just a fact and it's an enormous sum that dwarfs programs like TARP regardless of how the transactions were divided. If it provokes populist rage, maybe that's because it should.

If it provokes populist rage, maybe that's because it should.

I will no longer argue this with you as it is clear you are not interested in logic. I am not interested in clouding a debate with emotion so I'm done.

Sometimes emotion can be a logical response to events. If you feel disgust at the actions of a murderer or thief, there is nothing logically 'cloudy' about that--it's a justified reaction. You allege that simply stating a numerical figure that represents the sum of the Fed's loans over a 3 year period is 'designed to provoke populist rage'. My point is that if just printing this number leads to strong emotional responses, it's worth considering if those responses are justified. So you see, I'm not actually bringing my own emotions into the discussion, just countering your assertion that reporting the sum amount of the Fed's activities is somehow 'designed' to create anger. So it seems you're the one getting emotional here and taking your ball and going home. I'm just stating my thoughts. But anyway, c'est la vie... thanks for the discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

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