Occasionally the mass media gets it right.
A PBS interview of Bloomberg’s Bob Irvy discussing the total taxpayer funded cost of the financial sector bailout. Going way beyond the 700 billion spent on the TARP program, Mr. Irvy totaled everything up and figured it was 12.8 trillion. But it gets worse as there is little in the way of accountability, if that’s not bad enough when Bloomberg filed suit using the Freedom of Information Act to compel the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to reveal which institutions were bailed out by the taxpayer and how much did they get. they refused, since then they have lost 2 appeals yet still refuse to turn over the information. That’s OUR TAX DOLLARS and this is yet another example that it is time to demand accountability. Thanks to Alison Stewart for conducting the interview.
Caleb Lawrence
Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.
But it turns out that that $700 billion is just a small part of a much larger pool of money that has gone into propping up our nation’s financial system. And most of that taxpayer money hasn’t had much public scrutiny at all.
According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy. The Bloomberg reporters have been following that money. Alison Stewart spoke with one, Bob Ivry, to talk about the true cost to the taxpayer of the Wall Street bailout.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
