How to spend $350 billion in 77 days

The law granted Treasury up to $700 billion, half of which was made available right away.

Since then, Treasury has:

- sent checks totaling $168 billion in varying amounts to 116 banks;
- committed another $82 billion to capitalize more banks;
- bought $40 billion in preferred shares of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) so the troubled insurer could pay off an earlier loan from the Federal Reserve;

- committed $20 billion to back any losses that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York might incur in a new program to lend money to owners of securities backed by credit card debt, student loans, auto loans and small business loans;
- committed to invest $20 billion in Citigroup on top of $25 billion the bank had already received;
- committed $5 billion as a loan loss backstop to Citigroup;
- agreed to loan $13.4 billion to GM and Chrysler to get them through the next few months.