700 billion -- are you f-ing kidding me??

If you ask me, this whole thing is ridiculous. Wall Street greed...yet again. How many times has this happened in the past? And like usual, the people who play by the rules get hurt. I really think that they should sack the upper management/directors of each of these companies that need a loan. Why should you keep the bad eggs? Granted that not all of them might be the problem, but you have to send a message. Unfortunately there was no criminal implication, or else we could have Kenneth Lay'ed the leaders of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers. To mess with people's money and our economy like they have was criminal in spirit, even if it was following the law.

As for the bailout plan, we are guaranteed a recession regardless of whether it is approved or not. It will just be a degree of how bad the recession will be. Should be similar to the S&L crisis back in the 80s...ironically enough which also happened during a Bush presidency (the worst of the S&L collapse that is since it started during Carter's administration). And similarly, Bush will be blamed for the crisis even though it was collective problem of Congress, White House, and Wall Street (primarily Wall Street). And of course, the succeeding president will be able to claim the subsequent recovery on their administration. Clinton does deserve credit, especially when it came to balancing the budget, but he did continue several of Bush's policy decisions.

As for specifics of the bailout, I agree with Congress that loans need oversight. I agree with pay limits, but I would go even further -- any golden parachutes shoudl go directly toward repaying the federal loans. Since there is no interest in sacking the management, there should be some sort of restitution for the mess they have created. One thing I do not agree with is allowing the rewriting of mortgages. Those people signed those contracts. Those people have to abide by those contracts. Just because they didn't read them close enough, or didn't have the fiscal discipline to make things work, doesn't mean the government should bail them out. The entire country has problems with fiscal discipline. Now is as good a time as any to make people learn. You know, its kinda hard to afford a $50k Escalade and a house and a family on an average salary. And this doesn't address the problem of housing inflation -- maybe mass foreclosures is the cure to the ridiculousness of current house values. A very stark future indeed.