I could be wrong, but it looks to me like this "wall street fiasco" is great for "us", the average American trying to live. Oil has dropped from $147 a barrel to $94 a barrel. And I think (again I could be wrong) that means it will be cheaper by the gallon at the pump. And since I have had to borrow twice in the last 4 years from my 401K (with a hefty "fee" going to the irs) to keep my house.  I don't have much money left to lose.... Let those businesses who cannot make it close....Let those businesses who can make become richer.... that's how American works.....in the words of Katt Williams...."somebody give me a witness"

Once again, hit the taxpayers. Your Wall Street scheme will hit the small investors, especially at banks, anyone trying to do anything besides gamble on the stock market is going to receive ZERO percent interest.( I know, I was with my father when he opened a new savings/checking account at .75% interest.) Of course thats what the low interest rates have been all about all these years (including Greenspan's reign) which is:  MAKE THE INTEREST RATES SO LOW IN THE '' SAFE'' INVESTMENTS(Bank accounts, Certificates of Deposit, T-Bills,bonds) so that it will be moved by frugal, TAXPAYING Americans (and also their pension managers or 401 K managers) into risky stock investments where it can be STOLEN!This has been cleverly done just like the bailout plan. Do the people with the golden parachutes pay any taxes? I don't think so! Their lawyers and accountants help them there. So sorry Mr. Wallstreet Guru...I have an idea, why don't Mr.s Cox, Bernanke and Paulson work for Zero pay like the rest of us are getting close to.

$700,000,000,000 could build some nice prisons to house all the swidlers that took part in what has to be the biggest con or fraud which ever way you choose to describe what happened in the history of the world. The powers to be need to address this with whatever means they deam necessary to investigate and prosceute all individuals that wrote or contributed to giving mortages to parties that were not qualified from the start and handed out money with the sole intent of earning their commissions and total disregard with what would happened as it clearly shows with our current situation. I say let them all go belly up  and start anew with better ways of avoiding a repeat.

LOL

Maybe they should PAY interest to get people to borrow the garbage U.S. dollar!!!

If the interest rates are cut to 0 what happens to the older generation who saved there money over the years and invested in CD's and now are trying to live off the interest? It's hard to find a interest rate over 3% now, what do we do if it drops much lower?

Cutting the rates to '0' does not mean cuttting the saving rates to that amount. I am in mortgages and this field is going thru the shake up that the accounting field went thru a few years back. The accounting field greatly needs 'transparentcy' . I have always been stunned  by the various lending  programs that were released by the banks that target individuals with poor credit. The wholesale banks approved these loans, not the individual loan officers.  Let's use the example of buying a car. When a salesperson sells one and it is a lemon, do you blame him/her or the company that made these cars. I do think that cutting the interest rate by maybe 1% to 1.5% would have a significant impact. It cannot help the 'flood' of home on the market but I think that allowing people to stay in their hoime via 'defferred' payment will greatly help many. I think those who are falling into foreclosure' should be given a 'breather- period esp going into the winter.

The bailout is saving the perpetrators and not the victims.  Unqualified mortgagees were lead to believe that they could afford the homes they were buying.  Why else would a mortgage company give them the money, right?  Those victims need a life preserver.  Renegotiating those mortgages with funds from the recent windfall earnings of the mortgage company executives would serve to prevent widespread mortgage failure (and punish the guilty).  These homeowners want to stay in their homes and hopefully by providing a little relief, they could.  Isn't it better to get something from them toward the loans every month than to count the entire amount as a loss?

Why can anyone still get a loan (mortgage) for a house with out a social security number? Talk about inviting fraud! You can look on line right know and find these type of loans (and backed up by our tax dollars)! Enough people! I had to qualify for my house based upon credit, employemnt, and down payment. I don't care what color you are; if you don't qualify; you don't! Save up like the rest of us! Tighten up the laws for subprime. No SS# no loan (shouldn't be here anyway)! Because of the morons in Washington- my dad lost a big chunck of what was left of his hard earned retirement. Let alone the money that I have been loosing! You say don't panic in one breath and shout the sky is falling in the next! The liberal press and the morons Wall St. get the main amount of blame; followed closely by the Congress and Senate (and of Course Bush for bowing down to you liberal morons)!!!!!!!

We should get rid of the unconstitutional FED. (which BTW is neither a branch of the federal government or a reserve.  But instead a private, for profit bank owned by some very rich people.  Check it out. It is not listed in the blue gov't pages of your phone book.) It is also above most oversight and is self regulated and will not be audited.  In fact the few times the Gov't has asked to audit, the bank has refused to let them.  They caused the great depression with their policies (they have admitted it) and in the future we will find out they caused this too.  After the great depresson they said that their main purpose was to stop things like this from happening.  They did not.  Put the money supply back in the hands of the treasury, where it belongs.  Learn your history and constitution.  We will be doomed to repeat history if we don't learn from the past...

These are the purposes of the central bank.

Current functions of the Federal Reserve System include:[12][14]

To address the problem of banking panics

To serve as the central bank for the United States

To strike a balance between private interests of banks and the centralized responsibility of government

To supervise and regulate banking institutions

To protect the credit rights of consumers

To manage the nation's money supply through monetary policy to achieve the sometimes conflicting goals of

maximum employment

stable prices

moderate long-term interest rates

To maintain the stability of the financial system and contain systemic risk in financial markets

To provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system

To facilitate the exchange of payments among regions

To respond to local liquidity needs

To strengthen U.S. standing in the world economy

i personaly think that not having a bailout was a mistake. This situation resembles what happend in Japan after bubble. At the time same thing happend, Japanese citizen were against bailout and the baiiout was done too late to make the economic recovering quick. A lot of economist in japan says that not having the bailout on the right time delayed japan's economic come back at least for 10 years.

Having rate for 0% is what japan did also and its huge failure. I really think US should do the bailout as quick as possible. If not, then we should look for the economy to comeback 2015-2020.