Geez, I'm no economist, I hated my accounting classes and the accounting teachers who were always so freaking anal. Finance classes seemed a bit more freewheeling with at least more interesting people if not smarter than those stuck in exhalted bookkeeping.
Hey, I was a frustrated journalist/writer who realized by sophomore year that the altruistic professions - meaning all those I had an affinity for - did not pay. So I surprised myself by exercising a different part of my brain and grew myself a Bachelor of Science in Business (Computer Crap).
So far be it from me to provide a detailed plan to extricate ourselves from this debt fiasco. So let me go back to my origins: Instinct and Artistry after the fold.
I think the Republicans are a little astonished at how FUCKING FED UP the American people are at how thoroughly they've been fucked over for the past 8 years. They have done everything they could do to cultivate all of us into being comepletly complacent cows for 30 years and are full of consternation when we finally object as they line us up at the slaughterhouse.
It's election year, people. All those election year House candidates are pretty skeerted, cuz we'z voters are fed fuckin' up! House Repulicans have no choice whatsoever than to become populist today despite their enabling behavior of the past that has led to this fiscal crisis.
So let's get them populist.
First: Let's pass emergency legislation that gets credit going for small businesses, which are the backbone and hope of America. Just set up a bank from which they can borrow, with a fraction of the 700 billion the "Insiders" are asking for.
They cannot afford to deny helping small businesses. Let's keep the credit going first, at the local level.
Second: Pass emergency legislation that puts every foreclosure on hold retrograde to ? and renegotiate every mortgage loan to a level manageable by the majority of mortgaged homeowners. Disregard the overvaluation of the property and get people back to paying reasonable mortgage amounts each month.
Third: Do what the people want most. Begin an investigation that finds responsibility for the current situation by following the excessive greed.
Fourth: Set up a bank to finance the finance industry at reasonable interest rates that will get credit flowing again to the big guys.
Hear that? Capitalize on the new Republican populism, and assert the little guys first, before helping the big guys. It can't hurt to keep small businesses going. It can't hurt to provide stability to the mortgage market. Do those things first, and the market may well recover without giving the golden ones a ton of money to dig themselves out of their self-dug holes.
Ok, maybe I'm a complete economic idiot. But I'm a progressive, and that means, the guys in most need of help...come first.