Roubini and others are estimating that cleaning up the financial system may require four to ten trillion. There is some obscurity here owing to lack of transparency and disinformation. Moreover, the situation is complicated by the global extent of the crisis. Being the world leader and chief financial player, the US is likely going to have to contribute significantly to the rescue of other countries also. The exposure is potentially huge.

Unless the powers that be are willing to permit market-based price discovery and the resulting debt destruction, the presses are going to be running full steam, and taxpayers are going to be on the hook for continuing bailouts of zombies and unlimited guarantees of all exposure, including the mountain of toxic waste. On the other hand, permitting the market to take its course will likely result in the bankruptcy of many core institutions and their political constituencies. This would in turn result in global capital impairment, seriously constraining recovery.

Can the dollar take it? I think that they are betting that the alternative is to horrible to contemplate, so the world will suck deep and swallow the bitter pill. If not, ????

EURUSD graph here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=EURUSD=X#symbol=EURUSD=X;range=1y

I remember that peeps were whining on the budget deficit during the days of GWB.

In the EU there is a wish that the budget deficit should not exceed 3% of GDP. The planned budget deficit of the USA is 13.1%. In China the budget deficit is less than 3% and government debt amounts to 20% of GDP.

My suggestion:

_{--Sell Alaska to China!}

How many times will that much money stacked end to end circle the globe? I like my money measured in distance or weight, not something silly like value.

Easy answer is to slash DOD budget. It's $500 Billion+ base this year alone. Guns or butter indeed. The "one time" bailouts are chump change to the decades of money dumped into the Pentagon.

That said, if the stimulus infusion works, then the real work can be started on getting the deficit under control. At the moment, the deficit is just another number floating around. Doesn't mean much until someone starts calling it in. The "good" part of all this is that the entire globe is taking a dive. If it was only the U.S., then we'd be in even more trouble.

what does a trillion dollars look like?