For all of you stating do nothing! I don't agree and will give you fresh perpective from someone that is in the trenches.  17 yrs in the mortgage business, I have sold maybe handfull of sub-prime/ so called liar loans you can count the amount on both hands.  To do nothing and you think it will not affect you? Try again, homeowners how much equity have you lost the past 18 months?  How many of you are upside down?  Paying a bit more for your credit cards?  Let the banks fail you say.  Try getting in line to get your insured money back from FDIC, they  have up to 99 yrs to repay.  Your next car loan good luck!  Kids going to college hope you have money to pay up front.  If you are not a  homeowner good luck getting financed, keep paying the high rent that is out in the market place right now, which is at this time more than most mortgage payments.  I am a homeowner, father of three and have lost substantial equity, no big deal I am here for the long haul and know it will recover.  Please explain to me why I should  take a 70% paycut due to conditions that are out of my control?  I have 2 boys getting close to college, sorry I don't have enough to pay up front. Who does these days? I guess they will have to ride bikes instead of purchasing a vehicle since financing is not going to be availble. There are millions of families just like me and my family that if the government does not step in will have deep effects.  I see this helping out more than just BIG BANKS. Someone talked about reserves... well let me give it to you straight, I had a client Full documentation 1 Million+ reserves 25 yrs on jobs 40% down payment ($160,000)on a 400,000 purchase price and 805 credit scores and the lender turned down the deal due to comparables on the appraisal were 1.25 miles away and not 1 mile away. But HEY everything is just great in the credit markets right?  I am not big on government intervention but this has to happen or give it time and most of you "do nothing" people will be lining up in a few months wishing something was done. One last thought try taking a 70% pay cut and try to survive.

i keep hearing about loans that people took out and are not being payed back. like it the fault of the people..isn't this just a sign of our economy..we all need to buy food,electricity,water,we need clothing,and of course we need GASOLINE!!and we need a home. sounds simple but it's NOT! it takes alot to be a home owner and a car owner considering all that comes with it,mine needs new treads right now and a paint job,and i need a new ins providor mine is expensive,anyways.I hear the goverment is going to bailout wall street with our money, this doesn't scare me,what does scare me is they seem confused on what they're doing, and some saying they putting us at RISK! i want to know what the risk is! even bush is saying it's RISKY! are they putting this country at a risk of going broke? i don't like the sound of RISK! and no one should ever put this country in RISK..come up with a [plan that has NO RISK THEN YOU HAVE A PLAN...

i`m sick of this bailout stuff..let `em fail..flat..i`d rather c the fed $ go to extra FDIC ins payouts than to the fat cats on W/street..always another carrot in front of us..B/stearns, then AIG, then..etc etc..whats the next magic bullet?  Is it if we all eat twinkies for 6 weeks the money probs will vanish..LET THEM FAIL..WAMU JUST DID..FINE..and..and..i`m fed up w/cracker boxes priced at $500k..after the mess is over..a cracker box will be priced at what its worth..60k, or less..no bailouts! read my lips..

As a little person, I say let the markets crash!  It will not affect me one way or the other.  My life is exactly the same day to day. The government is of the people (rich) by the people (rich) for the people (rich) truly, we the people, should demand to put it to a vote nationwide and let the talking heads hear our voices on this one.  Average taxpayers, blue collar and down, would no more vote for this bailout than we would support placing the ceo of enron in charge of the pursestrings of the actual plan when congress sneaks it in to law just before they take their eight to ten week (PAID) vacations.  America should wake up and see just how bad things are.  I fear that the iranian was correct, america is no longer a world leader, we have become a world laughingstock and until the tides shift, nothing will change for the better.  

NO BAILOUT. Let  WALL STREET take care of themselves. I take it only the rich like the Busheys and the Cheneys make up WALL STREET. Sorry fellas,see how it feels to be in the MIDDLE CLASS.

News of the “Economic Relief” has made its way into most homes across our great nation. However, the details of how this plan will work have been kept from the general public. Is this plan going to hurt the middle and lower class citizens? Should we be sending our hard earned tax dollars to the federal government for this sort of relief? This is why the proposed and planned financial bail out by our government is so worrisome. This “Economic Relief” package will be signed into law before the general public is made aware of the long term consequences. The Federal Government has long been re-active to the cries of Wall Street and Major Corporations rather that Pro-active with over-site when it comes to the security our economy. I graduated in 1992 when gas was 1.09 a gallon. Since that time gas prices have risen to 3.79 a gallon with little or no over-site until it threatened to slow our economy. Again our government has been re-active instead of pro-active. The weakening of the dollar is going to bring even higher gas prices as this bail-out unfolds. If you think our elected government officials have your best at interest @ heart, I am the man in the moon. At this very moment our country is spending 6 billion dollars a month for the war in Iraq according the Congressional Budget Office. What would 6 billion dollars a month for the past 66 months have done for our homeland security and economy? It equates to 396 billion dollars over 5.5 years. The war is not the issue, where we are fighting it is. When our government officials start paying attention at home then we may have a chance to recover. Former President Bill Clinton had us heading in the right direction before he left office. Since that time we have had politicians with personal goals and vendetta’s of which do not correlate with middle and lower class America. As you go to the polls this election year ask yourself what you are voting for. Are you voting along party lines? With right wing, left wing, conservative, and liberals in each party, do you really no who you are voting for? Who needs a foreign policy with the issues we are facing at home. American citizens need to take a good look at the individuals running for the Office of President. When you go to the polls this November you could be voting for the economic relief that our country has long needed.

If Congress approves the $700billion bail out, just who gets what, who decides and when do they get it?

Perhaps they should start by allowing homeowners to apply for bridging loans to pay the extra sub prime interest until they can improve their FICO scores to qualify for a lower interest rate.

Put aside the investor/speculators buying properties for profit on capital growth they can mostly dig themselves out of the holes of their own making. Deal with the absurdity that the lower income groups were induced to follow the same speculative trail with no fall back position except poverty and a flop to live in. I would be looking to the coming social ramifications of destroyed self-esteem that simply reinforces the inclination to be an urban terrorist and take whatever is needed or wanted...  Poverty is fundamental to any kind of revolution.

Let’s be charitable and say that low starting interest, deferred first payments and 100%+ mortgages lured them, in the vain belief that capital growth would pay for the looming ‘extra’ interest, typically 6% to 9% on top of the starting rate after a few years standard rate interest.

Whilst none are excused from the excess of greed, the relatively poor should mostly be pardoned for dreaming the dream created by the media ghouls and their banker clients, inventors of spending someone else’s money and a life time of debt.

Bankruptcy of individuals and liquidation of businesses used to be shameful for those concerned, but politicians and bureaucrats routinely lie and resurface unscathed, so where’s the shame in that?  How can there be when 1 in 10 of the entire adult population of USA has been imprisoned - mostly for self inflicted abuse, and so we collectively embrace the mantra that: having served the time, the individual gets another chance with a clean slate. That acceptable but we need to put the bad apples on probation for life, without making them publicly infamous on a TV show which they mostly seem to enjoy.

If, as the bankers like to wail, the basic problem is due to sub prime mortgages that are not being serviced with rampant defaults, leading to devaluation of the  ‘sophisticated financial instruments’ [they created]  out of the sub primes and other unserviced debts, sold on at discounts through tiers of happy uncomprehending bankers, first let’s deal with the instruments:

1. Unwind every single one and let us see who paid what.  Impossible, maybe not. That is what accountants do, and as they mostly helped create the problem so let them resolve it.

2. Reverse ALL the mortgage debt sales for the past three years back to the original lender where the property can be reasonably repossessed - unwind the toxic debt spiral and remove the excessive interest.

3. Any prime ‘lender’ now not in existence can be substituted by the FED, so they end up holding the deeds or the mortgage papers before reallocating sensible mortgages to Freddie and Fannie.

4. Next use the combined resources of Freddie and Fannie to create smaller distributed ‘social mortgage companies’, with the FED as ‘golden shareholders’. Limit them to 15% profits for shareholders and scale mortgages - not to exceed $150,000 and no second home mortgages, nor resale profit within two years. Excess of profit goes to the mortgage holders to reduce interest two years in arrears.    

5. Those ‘single property homeowners’ with existing sub prime mortgages get the benefit of reverting to a standard prime mortgage on the rate they previously managed as fixed or floating interest rate.

6. Those ‘SPHs’ that suffered foreclosure, being unable to pay the extra interest, to be indemnified  by the original lenders [ or the FED ] with a similar loan at the original interest rate to buy an agreed property, plus a reasonable loss of home and discomfort allowance of up to $15k per home.

7. The bankers can all go in the dustbin, stuff them for being greedy and devious. They do not share their incredible windfall profits so why bail them out.

8. Next ban the entire directorships of failed banks from any financial involvement for 5 years. A blanket approach to a widespread problem at the very top.

9. Selectively investigate and prosecute all management of banks for misrepresenting accounts, benefits and value of securities.  The FBI is starting with a select group of four companies, ‘spread out dudes’, the toxic investment waste is out there glowing behind closed doors.

Let us get specific and target some professionals that created the whole deal:

10. The ‘MORTGAGE AGENTS’ for selling tens of thousands of ill-conceived sub prime mortgages.

There must surely be an easy to follow mortgage application form in each case that will reveal false data. Punish the liars.

11.  LAWYERS - who certainly helped to draft and compile the sub prime and other debt agreements that were sold forward.  

12.   In-HOUSE ACCOUNTANTS – how else did this stuff get balanced in the books.

13.   AUDITORS - for examining the annual accounts and endorsing the balance sheets.

14.  The BANKERS that came up with these deals and for selling and buying these flawed securities

15.   If anyone pleads  ‘I didn’t understand the deals’, then revoke their credentials and send them back to school to renew their professional qualifications. ‘Stupid’ we do not need - with a minimum 5-year ban on private financial practice.

Beyond a fair chance with equal opportunity to become successful, there is no given right to own a home or be absolved from losses created from one’s greed. There are, however, sound sociological reasons why we should try to provide for all: access to adequate shelter, advice to deter the ignorant or slow witted from burdening themselves and society with debts they cannot support, and to create clear rules to neutralize liars and carpetbaggers.  

We should draw a line between reasonable business sales techniques and the fraudsters, reduce expectations to sensible levels, and sensibly construct international rules for the operation of finance with constraints to ward off the inherent vice of people that will take unfair advantage of the uninformed by lies and obfuscation.

On a mundane level, we expect McDonald’s to sell an edible safe burger for the money, and there are laws that ensure they do so on penalty of fines up to liquidation and imprisonment for wilful  evasion of responsibility by any and ALL their employees.

We should feel the same way about these financial deals that have destroyed livelihoods and wrecked families.   ‘’The devil take the weakest’’ is not a worthy foundation even for Capitalism.

Perhaps we should also review the concept of credit card roll over debt that is surely another shoe waiting to drop if the economy heads south with increasing unemployment.  The per capita debt in the USA has increased from $25 in 1913 , $261 in 1936 and today it is $31,700.

Suggested reading for scary stuff: ‘’what do you mean you didn’t know it was getting worse’’

Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again John F. Ince, AlterNet.

Posted March 20, 2007.  www.alternet.org/.../49418

The Smirking Chimp : Bulletins from the Titanic. Mike Whitney

Posted November 14, 2007 www.smirkingchimp.com/.../11031

An Average American Patriot: Is Paulson the President’s replacement DECIDER?

Posted September 24, 2008  anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

If Congress approves the $700billion bail out, just who gets what, who decides and when do they get it?

Perhaps they should start by allowing homeowners to apply for bridging loans to pay the extra sub prime interest until they can improve their FICO scores to qualify for a lower interest rate.

Put aside the investor/speculators buying properties for profit on capital growth they can mostly dig themselves out of the holes of their own making. Deal with the absurdity that the lower income groups were induced to follow the same speculative trail with no fall back position except poverty and a flop to live in. I would be looking to the coming social ramifications of destroyed self-esteem that simply reinforces the inclination to be an urban terrorist and take whatever is needed or wanted...  Poverty is fundamental to any kind of revolution.

Let’s be charitable and say that low starting interest, deferred first payments and 100%+ mortgages lured them, in the vain belief that capital growth would pay for the looming ‘extra’ interest, typically 6% to 9% on top of the starting rate after a few years standard rate interest.

Whilst none are excused from the excess of greed, the relatively poor should mostly be pardoned for dreaming the dream created by the media ghouls and their banker clients, inventors of spending someone else’s money and a life time of debt.

Bankruptcy of individuals and liquidation of businesses used to be shameful for those concerned, but politicians and bureaucrats routinely lie and resurface unscathed, so where’s the shame in that?  How can there be when 1 in 10 of the entire adult population of USA has been imprisoned - mostly for self inflicted abuse, and so we collectively embrace the mantra that: having served the time, the individual gets another chance with a clean slate. That acceptable but we need to put the bad apples on probation for life, without making them publicly infamous on a TV show which they mostly seem to enjoy.

If, as the bankers like to wail, the basic problem is due to sub prime mortgages that are not being serviced with rampant defaults, leading to devaluation of the  ‘sophisticated financial instruments’ [they created]  out of the sub primes and other unserviced debts, sold on at discounts through tiers of happy uncomprehending bankers, first let’s deal with the instruments:

1. Unwind every single one and let us see who paid what.  Impossible, maybe not. That is what accountants do, and as they mostly helped create the problem so let them resolve it.

2. Reverse ALL the mortgage debt sales for the past three years back to the original lender where the property can be reasonably repossessed - unwind the toxic debt spiral and remove the excessive interest.

3. Any prime ‘lender’ now not in existence can be substituted by the FED, so they end up holding the deeds or the mortgage papers before reallocating sensible mortgages to Freddie and Fannie.

4. Next use the combined resources of Freddie and Fannie to create smaller distributed ‘social mortgage companies’, with the FED as ‘golden shareholders’. Limit them to 15% profits for shareholders and scale mortgages - not to exceed $150,000 and no second home mortgages, nor resale profit within two years. Excess of profit goes to the mortgage holders to reduce interest two years in arrears.    

5. Those ‘single property homeowners’ with existing sub prime mortgages get the benefit of reverting to a standard prime mortgage on the rate they previously managed as fixed or floating interest rate.

6. Those ‘SPHs’ that suffered foreclosure, being unable to pay the extra interest, to be indemnified  by the original lenders [ or the FED ] with a similar loan at the original interest rate to buy an agreed property, plus a reasonable loss of home and discomfort allowance of up to $15k per home.

7. The bankers can all go in the dustbin, stuff them for being greedy and devious. They do not share their incredible windfall profits so why bail them out.

8. Next ban the entire directorships of failed banks from any financial involvement for 5 years. A blanket approach to a widespread problem at the very top.

9. Selectively investigate and prosecute all management of banks for misrepresenting accounts, benefits and value of securities.  The FBI is starting with a select group of four companies, ‘spread out dudes’, the toxic investment waste is out there glowing behind closed doors.

Let us get specific and target some professionals that created the whole deal:

10. The ‘MORTGAGE AGENTS’ for selling tens of thousands of ill-conceived sub prime mortgages.

There must surely be an easy to follow mortgage application form in each case that will reveal false data. Punish the liars.

11.  LAWYERS - who certainly helped to draft and compile the sub prime and other debt agreements that were sold forward.  

12.   In-HOUSE ACCOUNTANTS – how else did this stuff get balanced in the books.

13.   AUDITORS - for examining the annual accounts and endorsing the balance sheets.

14.  The BANKERS that came up with these deals and for selling and buying these flawed securities

15.   If anyone pleads  ‘I didn’t understand the deals’, then revoke their credentials and send them back to school to renew their professional qualifications. ‘Stupid’ we do not need - with a minimum 5-year ban on private financial practice.

Beyond a fair chance with equal opportunity to become successful, there is no given right to own a home or be absolved from losses created from one’s greed. There are, however, sound sociological reasons why we should try to provide for all: access to adequate shelter, advice to deter the ignorant or slow witted from burdening themselves and society with debts they cannot support, and to create clear rules to neutralize liars and carpetbaggers.  

We should draw a line between reasonable business sales techniques and the fraudsters, reduce expectations to sensible levels, and sensibly construct international rules for the operation of finance with constraints to ward off the inherent vice of people that will take unfair advantage of the uninformed by lies and obfuscation.

On a mundane level, we expect McDonald’s to sell an edible safe burger for the money, and there are laws that ensure they do so on penalty of fines up to liquidation and imprisonment for wilful  evasion of responsibility by any and ALL their employees.

We should feel the same way about these financial deals that have destroyed livelihoods and wrecked families.   ‘’The devil take the weakest’’ is not a worthy foundation even for Capitalism.

Perhaps we should also review the concept of credit card roll over debt that is surely another shoe waiting to drop if the economy heads south with increasing unemployment.  The per capita debt in the USA has increased from $25 in 1913 , $261 in 1936 and today it is $31,700.

Suggested reading for scary stuff: ‘’what do you mean you didn’t know it was getting worse’’

Think the Nation's Debt Doesn't Affect You? Think Again John F. Ince, AlterNet.

Posted March 20, 2007.   www. alternet. org/story/49418/

The Smirking Chimp : Bulletins from the Titanic. Mike Whitney

Posted November 14, 2007  www. smirkingchimp. com/thread/11031

An Average American Patriot: Is Paulson the President’s replacement DECIDER?

Posted September 24, 2008  www.  anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot. com/

Has anyone seen the "Birk Economic Recovery Plan"?    Divide the 85 billion for the AIG bailout among the adult population in the USA and they will solve the Recovery without further government help.

Is inflation going to be a big issue in the years following this crisis?  By injecting the market with money that has virtually no worth at this time, down the line as the market tries t correct itself, won't inflation come into play in a big way?  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the market is suseptible to the same laws of pyhiscs.  What goes up must come down.