trillion

The US government's tab (and the taxpayers' tab) for fighting the financial crisis grows week by week, and the potential bill is far into 13 figures already.

The U.S. government is now willing to spend more than $7 trillion to help rescue the economy. That's about $23,000 for every American, and more than half of U.S. annual gross domestic product.

We're looking at a mind-boggling, trillion-dollar budget deficit next year and I say keep the red ink rolling.

AIG may have gotten a $150 billion deal Monday, but that's just a small fraction of the nearly $3 trillion in financial rescue programs the government has created to stabilize the U.S. economy.

Congratulations Mr. President-elect. Now get to work. It's a little more than 10 weeks until Jan. 20, and there's an economy in dire need of fixing.

Jittery investors pulled half a trillion dollars out of money-market funds in the past few months, siphoning out another source of credit.

It's Fed to the rescue again, though, Senior Business Correspondent Bob Moon reports,

In the arcane realm of derivatives, all over-the-counter contracts combined have been valued at 3 1/2 times the world's total assets. Ridiculous, right? Not entirely.

Cities and states need an estimated $1.5 trillion to fix crumbling bridges, roads and utility plants. Taxpayers traditionally have paid for those kinds of projects.

But governments are heading for Wall Street to get the job done. John Dimsdale reports.

Make no mistake: The worst probably is not over for financial firms. Not by a long shot.

They own or guarantee $5 trillion worth of mortgages­ - nearly half of all the country's outstanding home loan debt - and they're crashing.

Big time.