Government bailout approaching annual GDP total?

Maybe, maybe not.

When the federal government has loaned, given or guaranteed nearly $13 billion or, in other terms, nearly one year’s Gross Domestic Product for the entire country, it might be easy to say you blame other industrialized and developing countries for saying, “We’ll give it a second thought” rather than immediately signing up for something similar?

On the other hand, the Bloomberg total includes a lot, a lot, in stuff that’s “guaranteed” but hasn’t been disbursed. If you only include what’s been disbursed, whether through loans, payments or guarantees invoked, we’re still below $2 trillion.

That said, who knows how much of the remaining $11 trillion will be needed or not? Since Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke like being opaque, they’re not going to say.