[kernelofwisdom]

In my opinion you can pull politics right out of this issue. It was meritless greed up and down desired by people poor and rich and therefore supported by the self-serving body of crooks known as congress and the hapless ringleader we call president (regardless of who's serving).

Yeah the wall street guys deserve to be treated like traitors in my book. But what about the bozo's, and everybody surely knows some, who took out stupid mortgages just to buy houses they couldn't afford and then home-equity loaned their way to big tv's etc. It had to come crashing down.

There was a time, only a few years ago but maybe now passed, when even the lowliest secretary was not interested in a house unless it had a garden tub in it. Yep, it was garden tubs and granite countertops for the women and bonus rooms and plasma tv's for the guys. Certainly we had our run of it here in NC, which is a fairly conservative state as far as real-estate goes.

Low or no documentation loans for real estate?? Fraud everywhere. But people ran away from banks with traditional lending requirements into the waiting arms of those who would tell them their dreams would come true. Everyone was special!

And it was liberals and it was conservatives doing it. White, black and every color in between. Straight, gay and "just experimenting" all were in on it.

So now the government will pay our way out of it. Ok. Right. Years ago we mortgaged away the future to have fun in the present. Now the future is here. Oops!

I'm sorry this will hurt people, but I cannot imagine any government policy that could make the economy grow when we have defied gravity for so long, living life above our means. What goes up, especially when full of hot air, must come down.