Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines, and Wired Markets

13.3. Still Mad, but Ever Hopeful

It took great deal of imagination, in a negative sense, to create the Great Mess of '08, and we will need a great deal of positive imagination to get out of it. The magnitude of the problem is staggering. Previous financial crises have involved dollar amounts that are lost in the round-off for this one. Long Term Capital Management's near failure was a $3.5 billion problem. The size of the federal rescue goes well beyond the $700 billion in the initial rescue plan. One estimate,^[] including the hidden tax breaks for banks and the Citigroup rescue, totals $4.62 trillion through November 2008, and compares this figure to total inflation-adjusted dollar equivalents for virtually every major federal project in the history of the country, which add up to less than $4 trillion:

	Cost	Inflation-Adjusted Cost
Marshall Plan	$12.7 billion	$115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase	$15 million	$217 billion
Race to the moon	$36.4 billion	$237 billion
S&L crisis	$153 billion	$256 billion
Korean War	$54 billion	$454 billion
New Deal	$32 billion (est.)	$500 billion
Invasion of Iraq	$551 billion	$597 billion
Vietnam War	$111 billion	$698 billion
NASA	$416.7 billion	$851.2 billion
Total		$3.92 trillion

This is an amazing number, roughly 40 percent of the national debt and 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). To comprehend this using the visual side of your brain, look at Figure 13.5.

Dealing with a multifaceted problem of this scale is unprecedented. It will require unprecedented imagination. ...