Bailout will cost every US taxpayer $6000

If you wanted to wipe out the US economy, and throw the global economy into the Greater Depression, this would be a great way to go about it. Imagine if this happened here in South Africa.

Each taxpayer had to cough up an additional R50 000. I can tell you now, more people than ever would lose their cars, and homes and marriages. An already cratering economy would implode like a volcano.

I know what everyone is thinking. When will things get better? The bad news is, if you believe what the Peak Oil guys are saying, since we are past peak we have started a permanent slide. Things may improve slightly, only to spiral down to a new equilibrium level even worse than before. And again and again.

clipped from finance.yahoo.com Paulson's plan would require Congress to raise the U.S. debt limit to $11.3 trillion. Don't forget it was just in July when the debt limit was raised by $800 billion to $10.6 billion as a result of the Housing Bill. On that basis, the cost of the bailouts thus far is $1.5 trillion - and counting. But the newly proposed $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) "ultimately may not cost us anything - that's certainly the goal," Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab says in the accompanying video, echoing Paulson's comments this weekend.