Imagine the effect on the economy if they used that $700Billion on paying off everyone's mortgage!

[BigBearJohn]

Why not? As long as we are giving away taxpayer money,
why not let the taxpayers benefit too?

[MichiganVote]

1. Because the problem hs mutated from mortgages to outright stinkin' bank investment housing debt

[calmblueocean]

2. Honestly, I don't understand why we're bailing out Wall St. instead of US homeowners.

The crux of this crisis is the value of mortgage-backed securities. They're not even mortgages, just a fancy way of buying the right to someone's mortgage payment. Instead of bailing out Wall St. by buying these mortgage-backed securities, we ought to shore up their value by guaranteeing that people can make their mortgage payment. We could easily say that, if you fit certain criteria (i.e. the house is your primary residence, your income is X, etc.) the government will guarantee the balance between what you can afford to pay and what's due on the mortgage for a set period of years.

As inflation rises, the real cost of a mortgage payment goes down, so there's no reason we even have to extend this guarantee for the life of the mortgage. Someone who can't pay off their loan now might easily be able to pay the same amount 10 or 15 years from now.

Because we're only subsidizing a fraction of the mortgage payment, and only for a set number of years, the price of "bailing out" homeowners ought to be drastically less than buying the bad mortgage-backed securities at the premium prices the banks are demanding.

It would shore up the mortgage-backed securities, AND keep more houses from falling into foreclosure, which is devastating to families and communities.

It seems to me there must be a hundred different ways we could help alleviate this financial crunch without just buying a trillion or trillions of dollars of junk MBSes. It's Wall St. that keeps pushing this as a crisis, because they know that's how they can rob us blind.

[abumbyanyothername]

6. We are not bailing our Wall Street.

We are bailing out China and Saudi Arabia.

We have to, or they won't lend us any more money.

Just default on it all and start over with a new currency -- one our government prints, not one created by private banks.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

[samuraiguppy]

3. what do people like me with no mortgage get?

what about people like my parents who skrimped, saved and did without for 50 years to pay for their house? Why don't they get help?

[Blarch]

4. They get to live in the same USA they grew up in.

Instead of a collapsed shell of it's self.

[samuraiguppy]

9. if we give anyone a break--

it should be all the people who have worked hard, paid their bills and never missed and never been late.

The people who are defaulting should not get a break. What kind of a lesson would that be--if you don't pay your bills and you will get rewarded?

[goldcanyonaz]

5. You get a pony.

[renie408]

8. Hells YEAH...god knows I can't sell the damn things in this economy...n/t

[samuraiguppy]

10. I love horses! nt

[abumbyanyothername]

7. One reason --

Total mortgage debt = $12-14 Trillion or so.

But we could just nationalize all that too. But I would suggest doing it as part of a reform that puts an end to our current financial system entirely.

Watch this for some ideas (47 minutes).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

[Writer]

11. Ya know, we DID borrow that money...

:shrug: