Somehow you added two zeros on to your $3,500bn on bank bailouts! In 2009, it looked like the actual cost would be about $350bn, which is a lot, for sure, but literally an order of magnitude less.
According to the treasury department, by 2010, projected cost of TARP was $30-50bn. That's /two/ orders of magnitude out.
You also handily miss out the multiplier effects of military spending, and act like the government is taking the money and shoving it up the ass of a small animal. In fact, the vast majority is given to US industry and to US citizens. I'm sure if you Google'd you'd find the source I'm looking for who described the US Military as the world's largest welfare system.
He is right. 3.45T are total costs of bailout. $2T Emergency Fed Loans (you can give shit-sandwich and exchange it to get real $$). $700B TARP. $300B Hope Now program. $310B Fannie/Freddie and AIG. And ya... we also added $140B Tax Breaks for Banks.
Did you intentionally ignore the $80bn to AIG? TARP was just one program of many used in the bank bailout. The OP didn't say TARP was 3500bn s/he said the total bailout(s) were that amount. Including the government taking on all the junkbonds.
What my peer means to say is that the Govt. spent a ton more than the TARP amount on buying what basically amounts to garbage debt - almost a pure gift. It's a less reported but much more important number. The banks, of course, like to claim that the TARP stuff was just a loan, to misdirect your eyes from the elephant in the room.
According to the treasury department, by 2010, projected cost of TARP was $30-50bn. That's /two/ orders of magnitude out.
You also handily miss out the multiplier effects of military spending, and act like the government is taking the money and shoving it up the ass of a small animal. In fact, the vast majority is given to US industry and to US citizens. I'm sure if you Google'd you'd find the source I'm looking for who described the US Military as the world's largest welfare system.