Bailout Fiasco

Our government is asking us to lend money to the very same people who were bragging about their multi-million dollar bonuses not so long ago. They've trotted out their pet doomsayers to say we have to do this quickly or all hell will break loose. Sound vaguely familiar?

All hell for who? All hell for those who believe we should continue to concentrate wealth to historic highs? Would it really be all hell to turn that trend around somewhat and put the comatose American Dream on better life support? It seems to me it would have been a much greater taxpayer incentive if they didn't take it in the first place.

I feel a better solution to the mortgage lending crisis is for all the companies who over-inflated the price of real estate in order to be able to sell more and more mortgage debt in the first place to take the losses, starting with the executives who made more 50 times more than their lowest paid worker (The modified Ben and Jerry's Rule). They should write-off at least 30% of the value of those mortgages, mortgage-backed securities and all the other exotic financial instruments associated with mortgages, re-write all mortgages to be 2% mortgages and allow everyone who defaulted and were foreclosed on to settle any remaining debt based on 70% of their original first loan.

All second and third (or fourth) loans should be written-off with no recourse against the borrowers, unless the total debt owed on the property is below 70% of the appraised value. All new real estate transactions should be made more streamlined and more cost-efficient; consider that in California we normally pay 5-10% in non-loan related closing costs for useless items like title insurance and such.

Decrease the cost of government so we the taxpayers can make our own choices on how to stimulate the economy. Creating a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street doesn't sound like less expensive government to me. Given the choice, I think most of us would choose to spend much less money on the machinery of war and Wall Street, and more on the machinery to actually make things in America once again.

Speaking of the machinery of war, the Middle East has been in a continuous state of conflict for almost 3,000 years. How arrogant are our leaders to think they will be the ones to finally get different religous groups to coexist?

It's time to stand up to those who would take more of your money and give it to their "friends". We need a government that is actually looking out for everyone and not just the rich and connected. We have been fed a steady diet of our current leaders have our best interests at heart, where were they as the real estate market was preparing to go nuclear?