New Report Finds Financial Crisis Cost Economy $12.8 Trillion

[eridani]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/13/846281/financial-crisis-lost-trillions/

The U.S. is still struggling to claw out of the hole created by the Great Recession, the Wall Street-caused crisis that resulted in the loss of millions of jobs. According to a new report from Better Markets, a pro-financial reform organization, the crisis cost Americans about $12.8 trillion in lost economic output:

– Estimated actual gross domestic product (“GDP”) loss from 2008 to 2018, of $7.6 trillion. This is the cumulative difference between potential GDP — what GDP would have been but for the financial and economic crises– and actual and forecast GDP during the period.

– Estimated avoided GDP loss from 2008 to 2012 of $5.2 trillion. This figure is the estimated additional amount of GDP loss that was prevented only by extraordinary fiscal and monetary policy actions. It is derived from the model-based estimate of Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi of $6.9 trillion, less $1.7 trillion in adjustments. (Because the Blinder/Zandi simulation ends in 2012, it does not include any avoided losses for the 2013-2018 period. For example, the effects of any ongoing or additional crisis-related monetary policy—such as Federal Reserve purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities—will continue past 2012.)

[limpyhobbler]

1. It's hard to measure the human cost of what happened.

And of what continues to happen.

[xchrom]

2. What did it cost the Banksters & Financialists?

Not so much.

[99th_Monkey]

3. and that doesn't even count the $2.3 Trillion the Pentagon "lost track of".

You know, that little detail that Rumsfeld let slip ONE DAY before the 9/11/01
attacks, and that was being "investigated" in the very same Pentagon offices that
were decimated in the 9/11 attacks.

[left on green only]

4. It's funny, the last time I saw Jamie Diamon Jim Brady,

He didn't look to me like his sorry ass was any the worse for the wear. That is to say that I could tell that he sure as hell didn't buy his suit at Wal-Mart, nor did it look like his wrist watch was a Timex. And of course I hurled all over the coffee table as I watched our right wing congress people fawn all of him with questions like, "What can we do to make it easier for you to gouge our economy?"

I cannot help but to think ill of them all.

[eridani]

5. A useless sociopathic parasitic shitstain

And if I told you what I really think of him, it would probably be a TOS violation.

[jtuck004]

6. He will most likely directly profit, none of this trickle-on stuff, from QE3. Pathetic. n/t