Has our government chosen the most difficult and expensive solution to the current economic crisis?

Could we have avoided the current economic crisis? When the serious problems began with defaults on mortgages if the government had taken immediate action and required the lenders to restructure those loans to fixed rate 40 year loans could this mess have been avoided? As it is now the lenders have been bailed out and the taxpayers are stuck with the bad debt. How will we collect? Will we collect? If collected will the "trickle down" philosophy be applied, how, will each taxpayer receive a payout?

Any ideas or info?

This spiraling downward of the economy began3-4 years ago with the rising cost of oil and energy. When we had to begin paying such an amount, we all stopped spending so much, we had to cut back. Now banks have been practicing this type of loaning for some time now, and what gets these young buyers is that they buy into these what I call balloon payments, where you have a certain price each month like 1,000, and you pay this amount for 6-7 years, then at the end of that those payments go up significantly to around 1,500-2,000 a month, and this become a shock to these couples, and they are not making that amount of money to support that type of mortgage payment, because usually the wife is working when they buy and they she stops to raise the children, and when the new payment comes around, one salary just isn't going to make those payments. If these young couples do not obtain a fixed mortgage rate, then they are really screwing themselves, unless they refinance, and then you have lost all p[principle that you have paid in. But the banks let these couples do this because they make huge amounts of money financing this way.

Both Dem's and Repub's own this one. It does seem as though the Dems are under the heaviest influence during this admin. The top 3 or 4 payouts from influence peddlers in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been Democrats (Dodd, Obama, and Kerry). With so many on the payroll and the huge sizes of them, it would be difficult to have any kind of reform legislation.

It could have been avoided with reform...however, as mentioned above, it was unlikely. McCain, also a benefactor, pushed for reform in 2005. Nothing Doing!.

The move appears to be the right one to head off a disaster down stream. However, there needs to be reform. The taxpayer is likely to hold the bag for this one.

Avoidance: The mantra of the Republican party for the last 25 years has been to deregulate. This is the consequence of those actions. Bush escalated it. The avoidance would be to regulate the banking industry. It's not like this didn't happen before (1929).

After it happen: They should have made the executives & managers give back their hugh 100 thousand plus bonus checks they got last month for doing such as swell job. They should also make all the stocks worthless - as the shareholders should get nothing. The Government should get the GOOD loans along with the BAD loans. Only taking the BAD loans is COMPLETELY UNFAIR to the TAX PAYER.

Believe me this problem did not occur over night or over the past 5years....this can be traced way back to the early 90's. We don't want government to control but government does need to do a better job at overseeing companies banks etc and blowing the whistle when necessary and give warnings....

WE THE LITTLE PEOPLE are just as guilty as the greedy rich ceo's.....when someone offers me a mortgage that is double or triple what I KNOW i can afford....dah, if i accept it then i am as much to blame.

OH and ZELTAR, you are not completely correct, as far as i can see the past 25 years there have been demos and repubs both in the white house. the same for congress.....geeesh, this is an AMERICAN problem.....WHY but the blame on one party.....surely your smarter than that.

No because the people who are in these loans were high risk for a reason...they default on bills.