Guarantees do not represent outflow, just the potential.
If you think we are going to recoup these trillions - or even half of it, I have a bridge to sell you.
Most of these "guarantees" consists of shoveling our money down a bottomless rat hole of depreciating debt or failing business models to try and prop up failure. All it does is put us on the hook for more when this fails, which it will.
It's like trying to catch a falling knife. It's stupid and is likely going to hurt, real bad.
You're thinking of things like the automaker and AIG bailouts, but a far larger share of this number comes from things like the guarantee of money market funds. The vast majority of these are not going to fail, and even when they do "fail"--as the Reserve Primary Fund did--actually losses were only a few percentage points.