Rick Newman

Instead of Bailout, Refund All Corporate Taxes?

By Rick Newman

Posted: September 26, 2008

How many zeroes is that again?

It's getting hard to comprehend just how much money it will take to rescue ailing financial firms and avert the economic disaster President Bush predicts if a bailout doesn't materialize. All told, the proposed $700 billion bailout package, plus the cost of rescues for Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and the three Detroit auto companies, exceeds $1 trillion. How much is that, exactly? Test your mastery of exorbitant figures with this quiz:

  1. $1 trillion is roughly equivalent to:
  2. How many years' worth of corporate income tax payments would it take to pay for a $1 trillion bailout?
  3. How many U.S. banks have failed so far in 2008?
  4. How many banks failed during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s and were taken over by the Resolution Trust Corp.?
  5. Approximately how many banks failed from 1929 to 1933, during the Great Depression?
  6. The private equity firm TPG invested $2 billion in Washington Mutual in April to help stabilize the ailing thrift. On September 25, WaMu became insolvent, and the FDIC seized it and sold $1.9 billion of its assets to JPMorgan Chase. How much of its $2 billion does TPG get back from the deal?
  7. Approximately how much in shareholder value at insurance giant AIG has been destroyed this year?
  8. Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG, is the company's biggest shareholder, with 355 million shares, as of May. How much money has Greenberg lost this year?
  9. So far in September, the S&P 500 has fallen by about 6 percent. Which component of the index has fallen the most?
  10. What comes after a trillion?

Go to answers >>

IT'S ABOUT TIME

I dont know about ant one else, but I tink its about time at least some of our elected officials finaly grew a pair.To think that all these extremely over paid,incompetent, jackasses think that they can run there companies into the ground,while making ridicously saleries and ungodley bouneses and perks, then think that we(meaning regular taxpayers) should foot the bill to bail there sorry asses out is mindblowing. Cuddos to congress for finally stepping up and doing there job.

And further more I would just about bet,that if you took all of these CEOs bonuses and took half of there saleries im pretty sure you could come up with enough money to cover the bailout.

M kendrick of NC @ Sep 29, 2008 22:40:28 PM

Hummm?

Nazis, pretty strong imagery… Gas chambers…

Oh that’s right Bush is a Nazis… Well at least the torture chambers have reopened under new management, US…

So if you believe in tax breaks you are a Nazi’s?

Then if you don’t you are a Patriot?

WOW

Tracer of TX @ Sep 29, 2008 18:14:33 PM

Watcher

Smart. Just as the country is plunging into a depression that will last decades, the free market dereg nazis are calling for even more tax cuts. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you have no ideas of your own, you can always fall back on the tax cutting mottos that gave us a $10 Trillion federal deficit, and rising.

Watcher of CA @ Sep 29, 2008 16:33:25 PM

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Rick Newman

Rick Newman

The global economy is mysterious, even scary. Chief Business Correspondent Rick Newman connects the dots. In addition to his writing for U.S. News, Rick is the co-author of two books: Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, and Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

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