That’s how much money the convention’s host committee ultimately raised to produce the lavish four-day gala at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Nearly 90 percent of the GOP money came from donors who contributed at least $250,000, with more than 40 percent tapped from just 15 contributors who chipped in over $1 million.

The Democratic festivities in Denver were just as lavishly financed by corporations, unions and individuals. The Mile High City’s host committee raked in $61 million for the cause, with 72 percent of the funds coming from contributors who gave upward of $250,000.

The final contribution tallies are included in financial disclosure forms that the host committees are required to file 60 days after the close of the conventions and analyzed in a new report by the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI). Because such organizations are set up as nonprofit groups, contributors can make unlimited, tax-exempt contributions — constituting a major loophole in campaign finance laws. The party conventions provide a unique opportunity for special interests to buy access to influential people while receiving little public scrutiny. In Minnesota the fundraising drive was spearheaded by the state’s two most prominent Republican politicians, Sen. Norm Coleman and Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

“These conventions were floated by huge donors giving much more than they’re ever allowed to give normally to support political parties and presidential candidates,” says Steve Weissman, associate director for policy at CFI.

The $118 million total for both parties fell short of the $142 million raised in 2004 (when conventions were held in the pricier cities of Boston and New York), but is more than double the haul ($56 million) in 2000. The 2008 fundraising figures dwarf the $16 million in public funds provided to each party to produce their conventions.

Not surprisingly many of the major contributors to the festivities in St. Paul and Denver are also big-time influence peddlers in Washington. These organizations have spent $1.6 billion on lobbying expenses in just the last four years, while chipping in $273 million to federal candidates and parties, according to the CFI analysis. Verizon, for instance, which has a serious financial stake in telecommunications policy and has fought against “net neutrality” legislation, contributed roughly $800,000 to the two host committees. Meanwhile in the previous two election cycles it spent $76 million on lobbying and gave $5.7 million to federal campaigns and political parties.

While the bulk of the donations disclosed by the host committees prior to the conventions came from corporations (see MnIndy’s coverage of this here and here), a significant chunk of change was also contributed by wealthy individuals or the foundations they control. Such donors were responsible for $4.3 million of the GOP haul, most notably a $2 million contribution from hedge fund manager Raymond Dalio. The founder of Bridgewater Associates is also a major Republican campaign contributor, providing $152,000 in federal contributions since 2005.

Most of the Republican donations from wealthy individuals were raised in the latter stages of the fundraising drive, particularly after Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson, IV was added as the host committee’s national finance chair in July. “They had Woody Johnson going after all his rich friends,” notes Weissman.

Many of the corporations currently receiving taxpayer funds from the various federal bailout plans gave lavishly to the two host committees. American International Group, for instance, one of the country’s largest insurance companies and the recipient so far of roughly $150 billion in bailout funds, contributed $1.5 million to the two host committees. Beleagured housing finance company Freddie Mac, which was taken over by the federal government in September, also chipped in $500,000. In total, according to the CFI analysis, key actors in the ongoing financial crisis contributed $14 million to the conventions.

Under campaign finance laws, corporations are prohibited from contributing money to sway federal elections. For many years, special interests thwarted the intent of this prohibition by funneling so-called soft money donations to the two major parties. These contributions were supposedly for nonpartisan efforts such as voter-registration drives, but in reality they served as a primary means by which companies could purchase influence with politicians.

Passage of the 2002 McCain-Feingold act largely closed this loophole, barring such soft-money donations to the parties. But fund-raising to support political conventions, which is regulated by both the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Elections Commission, falls outside the purview of this legislation.

CFI and other watchdog organizations have called on Congress to overhaul campaign-finance laws so that unlimited contributions can no longer be made to convention host committees. Under a proposal put forth by the bi-partisan Presidential Task Force on Financing Presidential Nominations, all convention expenses would be financed by the national party committees. Under such a scenario, corporations and unions would no longer be permitted to make contributions to the conventions, while individuals would be required to follow restrictions already in place for such donations ($28,500 to a party committee per year).

Sen. Barack Obama indicated during the campaign that he supports removing unlimited, soft-money contributions from the funding of political conventions — although no specific proposal was outlined. Weissman says the president-elect now has the opportunity to act on that principal. “I think if he raised it, he would be putting Congress in a position where they would have to do it,” he says.

Remember the second questioner from the second presidential debate? His name was Oliver Clark. Remember how John McCain answered Clark’s bailout question? He said lots of things, but you’ll remember this zinger: “The match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I’ll betcha you may never have even heard of them before this crisis.”

Remember how Clark smiled at that? It turns out Clark gets the last word in that exchange–on his Facebook page. He talks about the whole experience and he’s hilarious. But the best part is his response to McCain’s Fannie and Freddie quip.

Well Senator, I actually did. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. I have a bachelor degree in Political Science from Tennessee State, so I try to keep myself up to date with current affairs. I have a Master degree in Legal Studies from Southern Illinois University, a few years in law school, and I am currently pursuing a Master in Public Administration from the University of Memphis. In defense of the Senator from Arizona I would say he is an older guy, and may have made an underestimation of my age. Honest mistake. However, it could be because I am a young African-American male. Whatever the case may be it was somewhat condescending regardless of my age to make an assumption regarding whether I was knowledgeable about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Next time around maybe the audience should have the opportunity for follow up.

Why so low? According to Housing Wire, WaMu’s $231.1 billion loan portfolio included $52.9 billion in  ARMs and $62.5 billion in home-equity loans and lines of credit.  J.P. Morgan said it would write down WaMu’s loan portfolio by roughly $31 billion to account for losses.

Still, other questions remain: Some of the loans J.P. Morgan Chase now holds (via WaMu and Bear Stearns) will be eligible for sale to the U.S. government when a bailout package is finalized. So just how much will J.P. Morgan Chase make on the backs of taxpayers given that they snatched up these tenuous loans at next-to-nothing prices? The WSJ notes: “The deal will vault J.P. Morgan into first place in nationwide deposits and greatly expand its franchise.” In other words, J.P. Morgan Chase has billions to gain from a federal bailout while homewoners and consumers still have much to lose.

Economist and NYU professor Nouriel Roubini has repeatedly warned in papers and interviews that the financial and banking crisis will last several years, with credit losses nearing $2 trillion. Since late 2006, a total of 283 lenders have imploded, according to the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter. The bloggers at Implode-o-Meter have been tracking the housing crisis and the fraud inherent in it that has contributed to the toppling of mortgage giants. Currently, 14 lenders are on Implode-o-Meter’s ailing list, including majors like Sallie Mae, Chevy Chase, and Residential Capital, a mortgage subsidiary of GMAC Financial.

The subprime fallout is leaving small banks unstable, too. According to LoanWorkout.org, a consumer-watchdog site, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), the organization responsible for insuring up to $100,000 in individual bank accounts, might also look to the Treasury Department as its coffers begin to run dry as a result of bank failures and a shored-up cash flow. (Nearly ten percent of its reserves were swallowed up in the IndyMac bust.) Roubini estimates that hundreds of small banks will go bust in the next year, as the average bank has nearly 67 percent of its assets in real estate. The FDIC says it’s currently watching 117 in-danger-of-collapsing banks, which hold approximately $78 billion in assets.

So what do the bank collapses and an already $400 billion in government bailouts mean for you? In taxpayer payouts, we’re already more than 300 percent beyond the Savings and Loan scandal that cost taxpayers $124 billion in the 1980s. And according to Roubini, the current and looming fallouts mean we’re on the precipice of the most severe U.S. recession in decades. “This U.S. consumer is shopped out, saving less, debt burdened and being hammered by falling home prices, falling equity prices, falling jobs and incomes, rising inflation and rising oil and energy prices,” he writes on his blog, the Global EconoMeter.

Consumers shouldn’t expect a quick turnaround, he says. Instead, he adds this ominous forecast for America’s future: “This is the beginning of the decline of the American Empire.” The losses are spreading to industrial and corporate loans, to corporate bonds and CDs, Roubini says. Those collapses will lead to a systemic failure of the market, and America as a super power.

The losses also mean more tax dollars going to corporate welfare, that every person is a “shareholder” in seriously unstable companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that the already swelling federal deficit just ballooned further. And it means that those responsible for the crisis, voracious executives and directors whose unstoppable appetite for profits caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, get off easy why the American public pays for their greed affair.

In honor of this Depression-era milestone, we look back at a MnIndy July article spelling out just how much the execs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stood to gain on the backs of consumers, and what your hard-earned tax dollars will buy you today:

$13.4 million: Amount in salary and compensation paid to Fannie Mae CEO Donald Mudd in 2007, a 7 percent increase in pay from the year prior despite the fact that the company’s shares lost a third of their value in 2007

$18.9 million: The total amount, not including salary, compensation, and stock options, Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron is eligible to receive through extension bonuses, “equity grants,” and “performance awards” if he stays through 2009

$12.77 million: The total amount in lobbying expenses paid by Freddie Mac in 2007

$3.3 million: The total amount in lobbying expenses Freddie Mac has paid so far in 2008

$12.3 million: The total amount in lobbying expenses paid by Fannie Mae in 2006

$1.8 million: The total amount in lobbying expenses Fannie Mae has paid so far in 2008

$29 billion: The amount of credit the Federal Reserve awarded to JPMorgan to buy ailing Bear Stearns in March of this year

$124.6 billion: Total paid by U.S. government in the early 1990s for the Savings and Loan scandal caused by fraud and unregulated and imprudent lending practices

747: Total number of savings and loan associations that failed as a result of the scandal

$165 million: Average amount needed to bail out each institution then

$35 billion: Average amount needed to bail out each ailing institution today

More on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac here.

More on Nouriel Roubini here.