Ulp!

I'm linking to now is not the same thing. H/t to Downticket at the Confluence for this vid of Senator Clinton assessing, dissecting and addressing the current financial crisis. Pretty fuc*ing awesome. Shame that our presidential candidates cannot put a few sentences together on this topic and it's a damned shame that we won't have this type of representation in the WH.

http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statement...

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"The fund, which is marking its 75th anniversary this year with a "Face Your Finances" campaign, is at $45.2 billion — the lowest level since 2003. At the same time, the number of troubled banks is at a five-year high."

It bears repeating. We're fkd.

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Isn't one of the problems, as you, Lambert posted in another thread, the leveraging of these loans well beyond their value even as bad investments? I could see attakcing the problem from the other direction and spending all this money, and probably less, on shoring up the people with the mortgages. Then, maybe you could let the leveraged securities strangle the people who created them.

Fed and Treasury Offer to Work With Congress on Bailout Plan -- "the plan is likely to authorize the government to buy distressed mortgages at deep discounts from banks and other institutions. The proposal could result in the most direct commitment of taxpayer funds so far in the financial crisis that Fed and Treasury officials say is the worst they have ever seen.

Senior aides and lawmakers said the goal was to complete the legislation by the end of next week, ...

But whether a legislative consensus could be found remained an open question, and members of Mr. Bush’s own party were among those who were most critical of the increasing federal intervention in private markets.

At the meeting Thursday night, where officials said the atmosphere was tense, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, was notably skeptical.

A spokesman for the senator, Jonathan Graffeo, said later: “Senator Shelby believes it’s his responsibility to be skeptical on behalf of taxpayers. He believes our goal must be to minimize taxpayer exposure while maximizing the benefit to the economy. ” ..." -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/busine...

the GOP is playing populist--and i bet it works.