The subprime write-downs could hit $285 billion!!

Standard & Poor’s said on Thursday write-downs for large financial institutions on subprime debt are likely past the halfway mark, but could still hit $285 billion.

S&P’s estimate of write-downs was up from the $265 billion figure it published in January, but the credit ratings agency said an end to subprime write-downs was in sight.

“The positive news is that, in our opinion, the global financial sector appears to have already disclosed the majority of valuation write-downs of subprime asset-backed securities,” S&P credit analyst Scott Bugie said in a report.

If you compare the write-downs to the yearly U.S. budget it doesn’t sound so big, but $285 billion is a lot of dough. Just look at it.

$285,000,000,000

That’s a huge number!

If you made $15 per hour, you would have to work for 19,000,000,000 (that’s 19 billion) hours or more than 6,506,849 years (at 8 hours per day) to pay that off.

In 2007, the budget for the state of California was $102.3 billion.

The average price of home (in 2007) in the United States was $229,100. Using this figure, the subprime lending write-down would amount to more than the value of 1,243,998 homes across the United States. That’s more homes than there are people in Dallas, Texas!

Some say this is just the tip of the iceberg. Some say things are looking better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Someone put their ear to ground and make sure that isn’t a train coming.

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