Ombow, >> $16 Trillion <<
$16 trillion was actually the total amount of the bailouts going to both US and European banks during the time period covered by the one time audit of the Fed. A total of ~$27 trillion was made available, so the ultimate tab was likely higher than $16 trillion.
As I recall, the European portion of the $16 trillion was something like $6 trillion, but I'm going from memory. I posted the exact amounts here on I-Hub, broken down by bank. One of the US 'too big to jail' banks got close to $2 trillion as I recall, Citigroup or Bank of America. And people complain about the US spending a few billion on the food stamp program..
Concerning that one time limited audit of the Fed, the Federal Reserve had never been audited since its creation in 1913. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, Ron Paul proposed a full audit, and Congressional support grew and grew until a watered down one time audit was finally passed by Congress. Btw, Bernie Sanders was instrumental in watering down the audit, and the week they voted on the bill, the 'Flash Crash' occurred (May 6, 2010), which was most likely a thinly veiled threat by the Fed.
The $16-27 trillion used in the bailouts didn't count toward the national debt, and I think it was essentially 'zeroed out' since the money given to cover the Derivatives counter-party losses in Europe came back to the US holders of the Derivatives, and vice versa. Not sure how they accomplished that creative bookkeeping trick, but the Fed's own balance sheet is still massively bloated (over $4 tril), mainly from buying mortgage securities and treasuries during the prolonged QE process. The Fed is severely limited in its ability to save the financial system again should another big crisis occur, hence the IMF/SDR alternative.
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