With the news of the government working on a bailout of the financial industry to the tune of potentially $700 billion total, its interesting to look back at some of the other bailouts the government has done in the past..
1933 a $3 billion fund created the Home Owners Loan Corp. to buy bad mortgages from banks. The government made a profit on that deal.
1979 the government bailed out Chrysler corp. with $1.2 billion in loans. At the time Chrysler had 100,000 so this saved 100,000 jobs. Plus again, the government ended up making money on the deal in the end.
1989 we had the S&L crisis when the savings and loans were bailed out. The Resolution Trust Corp. was created to take over assets. This one cost taxpayers $125 billion.
2001 The government put $5 billion in cash and $10 billion in loans into the airline industry to help them out after the Sept. 11 attacks.
References:
- AP article List of government bailouts in past century.
- History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts at Propublica
- History of Public Aid During Crisis at NY Times
Posts
