$700,000,000,000 (a.k.a. $700 Billion and/or the new “$1.44 day” version of public teat bailouts)
The US Congress bails out their banks to the tune of $700 billion (plus what was previously spent on Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac). Across the pond, the U.K. announces a $700 Billion dollar bailout of their own for British bankers. Talk about your get out of jbail free. To put $700 billion into perspective, it is estimated that the US has spent approximately $700 billion on their war liberation investiture of Iraq, since it commenced in 2002. It is also $100 Billion more than the entire annual budget for all US social programs. In Canadian dollars, $700 Billion is the approximate total value of Canadian investments in Registered Retirement Savings Plans (or what they used to be worth before they went kerplunk courtesy of the fine mess our bankers got us into).
Expert Analysis: The 700 billion dollar figure has been selected, not based upon a Nobel Prize winning can’t miss formula, but more along the lines off its being the biggest number that can be pitched without being associated with the dreaded and probably more realistic Trillion dollar word – i.e. 750 Billion would become ¾ of a trillion dollars and any thing over that would be dubbed close to a Trillion – hence $700 billion. [Okay, I’ll admit that was actually my analysis; however, given that the experts got us into the predicament in the first place, perhaps that’s for the better.]