$5 trillion. That’s how much it has cost so far to bailout out corporate America from its own stupidity, greed and corruption (yes, Fannie and Freddie, that means you). Or to put it another way, the US government in its eternal wisdom has now put the American taxpayer on the hook for $5,000,000,000,000.

- Here’s the breakdown, from CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, as reported in Forbes magazine.

The Fed

• $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window*
• $1.8 trillion in loans to primary dealers through the Fed’s term auction facility since in January*
• $29 billion in Bear Stearns debt
• $60 billion of credit available to American International Group
• $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to manage some of AIG’s residential mortgage-backed securities
• $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps

The Treasury Department

• $700 billion raised in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act
• $50 billion to guarantee money market funds against losses
• $40 billion direct capital injection into AIG
• $200 billion to back the government conservatorship of Fannie Mae  and Freddie Mac

The FDIC

• $1.5 trillion to guarantee senior unsecured bank debt

* A portion of the funds lent in these two programs has already been repaid; the totals represent what has been made available.

According to the Forbes article, “Not included in the total are the Fed’s long-existing discount window lending to commercial banks, the mortgage modification plan announced by regulators on Tuesday, support for the Federal Home Loan Banks and a myriad of other programs.”

As Milton Friedman put it, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

- Despite the amount of money involved in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) set up under the rushed-through, pork-laden Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, The Washington Post reports that “no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.” Why is this not a surprise?

- There are plenty more bailouts in the pipeline, of course. We wouldn’t be surprised if the US government is less than half way through throwing taxpayers’ money at corporate America. On of the big factors in pushing up the bailout toll will be a Democratic controlled government come January 20, 2009. Democrats are already pushing the Bush administration to bailout out the auto industry. According to the the WSJ, “Democrats in Congress pushed ahead with proposals to bail out Detroit’s faltering auto makers, but the Bush administration signaled its reluctance to go along without significant restructuring to cure the companies’ competitive ills.

- Not the they brilliant bailout plan from Hank Paulson and the Bushies has done any good so far. According to The New York Times, “The Treasury Department on Wednesday officially abandoned the original strategy behind its $700 billion effort to rescue the financial system, as administration officials acknowledged that banks and financial institutions were as unwilling as ever to lend to consumers.”

- The NYT says Paulson is now considering shifting the focus of the bailout from financial institution and lenders to consumers:

But with a little more than two months left before President Bush leaves office, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. is hoping to put in place a major new lending program that would be run by the Federal Reserve and aimed at unlocking the frozen consumer credit market.

The program, still in the planning stages, would for the first time use bailout funds specifically to help consumers instead of banks, savings and loans and Wall Street firms.

Treasury officials said they hoped to invest about $50 billion from the bailout fund into the new loan facility, with the aim of helping companies that issue credit cards, make student loans and finance car purchases.

As envisioned, the Treasury would put up about 5 percent of the money that a company would use for lending and private investors would put up perhaps 20 times that much by buying bonds issued by the new program.

- Mr. Market hasn’t taken too kindly to Paulson’s newfound concern for the strugging American consumer. AP reports that “An increasingly despondent Wall Street fell for the third straight session Wednesday as investors absorbed another series of dismal corporate reports and news that the government won’t buy banks’ soured mortgage assets after all.” The Dow dropped more than 410 points. All the major indexes lost more than 4%.

- The FT reports that “several financial stocks hit new bottoms and the sector sank 6.9% overall after Hank Paulson … reversed course on its plan to mop up the illiquid assets.”

- Get used it. Bloomberg reports that “the U.S. downturn will be the longest in three decades, and the drought in consumer spending may be the worst ever.” At best, says Bloomberg, we’re going to get the deepest U.S. recession since 1981. At worst, there’s a chance it’ll be the worst postwar recession. We think both predictions are optimistic.