A federal program to guarantee or buy bad assets from the ailing U.S. bank sector could come with a $3.5 trillion price tag.
That would push the accumulated costs of rescuing the financial markets over the last year through various federal loan, stock purchase, debt guarantee and other programs close to $9 trillion and counting, with practically no end in sight for the bad news battering the banking industry.
That figure doesn’t count the $825 billion economic stimulus plan also under consideration (Forbes.com).
