Is Bush43 spot on when he says we shouldn't bail out greedy home speculators and their..

[heeltap]

...irresponsible lenders? Should the US gov't do more for them for the good of the rest of the economy--- like maybe go back and tax ill-gotten gains from the sub-prime lenders whose CEO's walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars when they "took the blame?" We'd do that with thieves, why not them? Enron and Arthur Anderson were put out of business, why not the fatcats at the banks and wall street brokerages?
(We do seem to be too lenient with the white-collar crooks who create new ways to scam the middle class and the poor!)
One of the reasonss interest rates were lowered can be blamed on the needd for the Gov't to finance the war against terrorism by deficit spending gone while. The gov't has shown very little concern for fiscal accountability the way they recklessly spend taxpayer's monies. The gov't is not exempt from culpability by setting the example for other reckless behaviors like sub-prime lending backed by major financial and investment corporations! Capiche?

 

[jack]

House prices get high when interest rates are too low - people are able to borrow too much, and they engage in a bidding frenzy. The goverment should be responsible for the legal framework banks lend within and it is goverments fault for letting this situation arise. Just as some people have made a lot of money out of overblown house prices, some people are going to have to take a lot of pain to return things to normal. Perhaps the goverment should tax those who are the recipients of all this cheap money, and return it as subsidies to the people who have missed out. Having said that I think a soft landing is preferable to a crash landing - so as inapropriate as it is I think they should stave off a crash by bailing out some of these firms (in return for equity perhaps) as long as the goverment gets its act together at the same time and allows interest rates to become painfully but appropriatelly high in the fullness of time.