[Arguendo]

Well I guess if every major bank in the country catastrophically fails and every company goes bankrupt and defaults on its commercial paper...

And even so, it looks like that $8.7 trillion number includes monetary stimulus, which is completely different from expenditure of taxpayer dollars. They obviously wanted a headline-grabbing number, not a serious estimate of the cost of the bailouts.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>Well I guess if every major bank in the country catastrophically fails and every company goes bankrupt and defaults on its commercial paper...<<

Remember, you claimed that we would get most of the bailout money back. It's not necessary for all of them to fail for most of that money to be lost. But I hope you turn out to be right.

>>And even so, it looks like that $8.7 trillion number includes monetary stimulus, which is completely different from expenditure of taxpayer dollars.<<

If we have rampant inflation as a result of all this "investment" that's every bit as bad as being taxed.