>>When Wall Street imploded, the government miraculously found almost a trillion dollars.

Watched the Big Short over the weekend. Makes the point that the subprime shenanigans were fraudulent and not only did the taxpayer bail the fraudsters out, only one of the banksters was charged. The rest who had turned a blind eye to participate in the unbelievable profits, protected their own loot, paid themselves bonuses out of government funds, repaid government "loans" (rather than share/asset purchases that would have socialized the benefits of recovery) in short order, and soon were back in business.

But lets not forget strain at $1T gnats while swallowing $47T camels like the unfunded Medicare deficit and Social Security running out of $ because funds were replaced with IOUs rather than being invested in inflating assets.

Compare to the Aussie Super scheme that only started in 1998 for a current population of 24m, but already makes their scheme the 4th largest holder of pension fund assets in the world with over $2T. A similar US scheme that only started in 1998 would have $30T- or actually more, since US wages are higher. Using 3% of this to purchase distressed banking assets would have made the banking crisis chump change and secured the recovery benefits for the fund rather than bankers, all without government borrowing. Other examples include the Ontario Teachers' Pension fund with $100Bs (plural) in assets for fewer than 200,000 teachers. They succeeded by investing teachers' pay-ins in appreciating assets before and during the boom periods, now owning valuable property and businesses all over the world where they are regarded as desirable responsible investors. Had similar principles been followed for US Medicare and Social Security from when they began, assets would be well into the $100Ts (at least) rather than unrecoverable deficits or sinking lids.