JoeB. Mrcontinental, my defender and apologist, is correct about my less than lucid remarks. In an organization when the members who are the most productive and supportive of the organization's mission statement, are punished for their fidelity, the organization declines. Coupled with this punishment for producing and saving, the crooks who used their influence to swindle investors by making unwarranted loans and selling the paper as an asset are being rewarded with bail out. This leadership performance directs an organization to irrelevance and destruction .

Allowing Banks and Wall Street Leveraged loan sharks to stuff their debt into Fannie and Freddie is beyond a bailout ....... it's an enormous financial burden directly levied onto we the tax payers. No one asked our permission that I know of. And the Congress people we pay to look out for our best interests help broker this swindle. Taxation with out representation remains the best stimulus for revolution that I know of.

So the last 168 billion "rebate" was NOT a bailout? We weren't spending taxpayer money then? When was that, two weeks ago?

I need to update that old lawyer joke: How do you know someone in the Bush Administration is lying? You can see their lips moving.

Paulson denies a bailout for the consumer. But for the reckless, swindler banks that loaned the money, his leadership is feverishly lowering the Fed funds rate and flooding the system with our degenerated currency. We save the guilty and destroy the wealth of the responsible citizens.
Lowering the discount rate is having the effect of higher interest rates; the investor sees the American economic system as an increasingly high risk environment.
Such is the decision-making of an incompetent, corrupt administration. Previlege and powerful interests prevail over the common interests. And the organization declines precipitiously and perilously.

Forgot the poor Americans and lets continue a Stupid War. That is costing us Billions in Dollars and Thousands of Wonderful American live. Get rid of this goofy Admin. We need Change and help to put the Country back in the right direction.

Forgot the poor Americans and lets continue a Stupid War. That is costing us Billions in Dollars and Thousands of Wonderful American live. Get rid of this goofy Admin. We need Change and help to put the Country back in the right direction.

I don't want to see a bail out. Rather I would support setting a maximum interest rate limit on all property loans at say 4% above prime as the best solution. This would dramatically reduce the rates for most borrowers, but at the same time not bail out the speculators. In addition it would eliminate the excessive profit the lenders were hoping to make and force them to be more careful in their future lending practices. As for disenfranchising those the would not qualify for such a loan I say those are just the people who could not afford the loans in the first place, so it is right that they don"t have access to them.

As any financier knows well, borrowing trillions of dollars (from that magical mystery "somewhere") to bail out anyone at all in this case simply will not work. If there is no debt there is no lending and vice versa.

But there sure-as-hell can be bank reform, and we had better hurry. Here's what I'd do:

(1) Stop the fraud in the processing of transactions. Banks must process their daily activity in the manner most favorable to the customer, not the manner most favorable to themselves. (A major bank made $14 BILLION in a very recent year from "fees and penalties.")

(2) Impose usury laws. Force interest rates paid by consumers to be vastly lowered and impose strict limits on how and when those rates can be raised. "Of course the loan-shark's lobbyists are 'rich,' ya doofus! Throw 'em ALL out!"

(3) Reform the credit-reporting industry. Everyone gets a free copy and has complete rights to dispute and clean it. In the future, any change to your rating may only occur after you have been informed and have been given the right to respond. You have a formal right to appeal.

(4) Re-appraise housing and forgive an appropriate portion of the debt. The house may not be re-sold for more than 10% profit over that new amount for the next 10 years. Simultaneously re-price both the collateral and the loan-balance. You're not destroying value: you're squeezing out the empty air.

By 'reckless,' he means 'small-time.'

What reckless lenders really need is serious jail time.

Interesting how "tough on crime" only applies to the lower classes. When that attitude changes then maybe we will see things start to improve

Good! No bailout for risky lenders or unqualified borrowers.