I thought the bailout was a waste of money on a colossal scale before I came across this comparison of some large chunks US governement spending since WWII. Now I’m just dumbfounded. (via Tim Price’s excellent The Price of Everything blog).

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research recently tried to put just the US figures into context. He concluded that the extent of the US bailout to date is currently bigger than all of the following US government expenditures combined:

• The Marshall Plan. Cost: $12.7 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $115.3 billion.
• The Lousiana Purchase. Cost: $15 million. Inflation-adjusted cost: $217 billion.
• Race to the moon. Cost: $36.4 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $237 billion.
• Savings and Loan crisis. Cost: $153 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $256 billion.
• Korean War. Cost: $54 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $454 billion.
• The New Deal. Cost: $32 billion (est.). Inflation-adjusted cost: $500 billion (est.)
• Invasion of Iraq. Cost: $551 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $597 billion.
• Vietnam War. Cost: $111 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $698 billion.
• NASA. Cost: $416.7 billion. Inflation-adjusted cost: $851.2 billion.

That aggregate total of $3.9 trillion is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis in the US thus far. And as commentator Barry Ritholtz points out, the only event that comes close to the cost of the current financial crisis is World War II, with the inflation-adjusted cost borne by the United States summing to some $3.6 trillion. Bloomberg calculates that the US taxpayer is on the hook for a total of $7.76 trillion of liabilities, which equates to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

It’s just staggering to imagine all that we could have achieved if that money had been better spent. I suspect history will not judge us kindly for squandering our last chance to create a sustainable, equitable society before all the crises we know are coming arrive.

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