[Dean]

The thing that needs fixing is the credit markets, not the banks. The banks have already and if this goes through will continue to take huge losses as they sell mortgages at pennies on the dollar.

The reason the credit market can't save itself is actually an accounting issue, not an actual money issue. Companies are forced to mark all their outstanding loans to a ridiculously low price due to the broken credit markets.

Lack of appropriate regulation, reporting and oversight on many levels is how we got here really.

And this is not a $700 billion expenditure!!! It is an asset exchange with up to that value. It is highly likely that the government will make money on this "rescue" because they can modify terms and hold these loans to maturity or resell them without marking to market!!!

If foreclosures are only at 5% and you can buy these loans at $.60/$1.00, you end up making a bundle... Is there risk, yes, but not much really.