Forget the bailout. It's time for a jail-out.

[smoogatz]

The people who've wrecked the banking/finance system are guilty of fraud, pure and simple: they knowingly cooked the books by falsely inflating the value of mortgage-backed securities they knew to be worthless. They belong in jail, not at the receiving end of the biggest transfer of wealth from working people to the very rich in American history. You want to bail somebody out? Use $300 billion of the proposed bailout money to buy every distressed mortgage in the U.S. Every one. Negotiate with those homeowners until you find a mortgage solution that works for them: reduced payments, reduced interest, payment moratoria, zero interest, whatever it takes to stop the bleeding in the housing market and keep people in their homes. Talk about giving the markets a psychological boost! Then use the rest of that $700 billion to give everyone healthcare, or to develop alternative energy technology, or to buy back some of the treasury bonds the Chinese are sitting on. No bailouts for criminals!

[hobbit709]

1. Reopen Alcatraz

[blm]

2. Absolutely - and if we do bail them out, WE have every right to see ALL THEIR BOOKS

and the books of all the government agencies who had contact and jurisdiction over these companies the last 50 years.

If a corporation was taking over a debt-ridden company, you could be damn sure they would demand every accounting book, every document, every receipt, every memo, and every slip of paper that crossed over a desk. The American people are owed the same.

[smoogatz]

3. You'd think it would go without saying, right?

Crazy times we live in. The balls on these people!