The last guy to get help is the average Joe. Wall Street Bankers, go begging in their 1500 hundred dollar suits and get whatever they want. It should not go unnoticed that Republicans favored Wall Street over Main Street in this current fiasco.

But at least W hasn't suspended Congress..like the Canadians did:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_re_ca/canada_political_crisis

As I said in the beginning of this:

1. Focus on easing the supply of credit by participating in the Commercial Paper Market.

2. Pool primary residence mortgages by region, as fine-grain as reasonably possible. Come up with a fair number by which market values of home have fallen in that region. Pay off the difference. This would be the akin to giving the banks their money, but it would actually participate in the economy, rather than sit in vaults. It would also set values for mortgages that matter. People's monthly payments would be reduced, reducing the # of primary residence defaults, etc.

3. Maybe a moritorium for a month, but really, we need to hang the rest. The speculation is the part of the housing bubble that does NOT need maintaining. This will provide some predictable future so people can get back to investing.

'vini, vidi, excreti' - Joe the Plumber

Come on guys, let's get serious.  We can start by finding how much in debt each bank is.  Ascertain the value of those toxic assets, bank by bank, and then disclose the final figures, horrible as they may be.  Let the bankers (bonkers) take their just punishments in public condemnation.  Oh, yes, they can give up their special bonuses and golden parachutes as well. and, their sense of entitlement too.  We ordinary folk owe nothing to them cuz of their high birth and status.

When the financial bloodletting finally settles down, let the Feds loan money to those banks still remaining. Sure the national government has to reconstruct things but the process should begin on firm foundations and bankers who have a modicum of intelligence.  Sure hope that is not an oxymoron, banker, intelligence.

Considering all the pain that our society is going to  endure, I am sure their will be ample support for regulation of the financial industry.  Simultaneously, we can apply a similar strategy to the automotive industry.  The keys are, I think, transparency and accountability both of which concepts seem in short supply in present times.

We feel compelled to go on doing to others what was done to us when we were small. Alice Miller

The auto manufacturers are going down. Home foreclosures are rampant. Few are buying anything they can't eat or burn in their cars. Our currency and treasury notes will soon be anathema to foreign investors. I think Jim Kunstler is on to something in his writings. Some very serious shit is heading towards the fan. No soft landing here. It's no wonder the government wants 20,000 U.S. troops augmenting various National Guard units. Probably some frantic reviewing of martial law procedures going on in various state capitals.

I assume that Hank's cronies have bought up a bunch of distressed mortgages at fire sale prices and now Hank is going to shore them up to make a good profit on them.

Given the numbers that were near a million foreclosures that were tossed out last month... Do you think they have transferred enough of people's homes over to the banks yet?

Every dollar they give the banks is another dollar put towards sitting on foreclosed homes and other assets (commodities) that are all over inflated from speculation.

The main reason gas prices have bottomed out? Demand is a small part of it. The biggest reason is all of the commodities that have been liquidated to help the banks meet their gambling debts.

Which kind of proves the fact that speculators were always the cause of high prices on gas after all...

Never mind the criminally negligent shadow bank gambling that should have stockholders suing the CEOs and management, and the feds prosecuting them all. That is all a matter of ethics and knowing negligence. (And, yes! They did know what they were doing.)

We really do need "fair trade" practices on all of the little things we need to live (homes, energy, food, etc.) because the market speculation on them all poses a serious threat to our economic national security.

I bet that thought will make some of the die-hard-free-run-amok-market capitalist heads explode.  

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The moratorium will have the most immediate impact.  But not a good impact.  As Irvine Renter says here, this is a foolish idea: http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/moritorium-on-defaults-announced/

I know it seems like this would help people and is the liberal do-gooder thing to do.  But, it will be BAD for the majority of our population and our economy.  The only "benefit" is it wold give is a very few people would live free rent for a couple of extra months (many of the underwater homedebtors will not only have lived in a much more expensive home than they otherwise could afford but many will also ive rent free for a long time).  The other "benefit" is it makes Bush and Paulson look like they're doing something (notice they still won't agree to wholesale principal reduction--they want it as one "tools" in a program which is basically taxpayers paying underwater mortgages directly).  Of course, the real reason is that it helps banks a little bit by giving taxpayer money to banks directly via mortgage payments so that it may encourage a few more suckers to keep paying the banks for a little while longer.  They probably realize it won't save the banks but they may as well bleed these underwater homedebtors as much as they can.

It's a terrible short term idea that will only make it harder to recover from this depression.  You want to tack 6 or 9 months of this recovery off for later.  We need home prices to come down to a reasonable level to have a sustainable economy in the FUTURE.  Trying to delay our medicine will only make it worse.  

This is exactly what Japan tried.  They tried to prop up their housing market and of course all the liberal do gooders there probably thought that was the way to help the majority of the people in the best way.  Let a bubble deflate slowly.  They are now going on 2 decades of slowly declining house prices.