The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks.

Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS.

That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back. Twice.

That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.

All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

Whatever a jib may be.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing more about this. But right now, I wanted to keep this really simple. Just give folks something to talk about when they’re standing next to the coffee maker.

The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it.

Think about it. Think about what that means.

This bears some resemblance to another competition, the 2011 Solar Decathalon, that just finished its week on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Each team designed and built a 900+ square foot energy efficient home over the past two years, and then shipped them to DC to display them for the week.

It was sponsored by the Department of Energy. Nineteen universities participated; 15 from the US and 4 from other countries; Canada, Belgium, New Zealand (the third place winner) and China.

You can see more about it here, http://www.solardecathlon.gov./

If we weigh the cost, in lives and dollars, of our "War on Terror", against the benefit of preventing one 9/11 a year, how would that expenditure compare with what we spend to prevent death and property damage from things like highway accidents, hurricanes, cancer, pollution, earth threatening asteroids, etc. Is it just me, or on that basis does it seem the "War on Terror" consumes way too much resources.

I'd love to see numbers on this if anyone knows of any.