I'm feeling an unease about this whole thing. Most people, me included, do not understand the economy. In fact, it may be impossible to do so. I saw an old guy jawing with Moyer last night who supposedly is REAL SMART, but ultimately he was just shoulder shrugging about what should happen, so how smart is he? That being said, my feeling is that we're being bum-rushed into rescuing the financial markets in a BIG WAY and that given time we could find a more sensible approach, perhaps even some of the things that you're suggesting. I hope like hell that Obama is brainstorming with a variety of economists and that some of them are suggesting really out there and creative approaches to cleaning up this mess. And then before Congress takes this deal that sounds like a gun to the collective heads of the American people, I hope Obama steps forward with a brilliant plan that cuts through the bullshit. I hope.

On your first point, I don't believe this would benefit renters and leaser because landlords are under no obligation to renegotiate their rental agreements. The landlords will profit, the tenants will just be further alienated.

I think your second point is sound, but it is not the only way to approach the problem. If Bush hadn't undone the regulatory framework by populating all of the agencies with ideologues and hacks, the current meltdown would probably have been avoided. When Obama speaks about a "21st century regulatory framework," I don't think he is talking about restoring Glass-Stiegel.

Point 3 is right on. The current minimum wage should be around $10-$11 per hour. McDonald's is wildly successful in England and France where minimum wages are in that range. If an employer is financially unable to offer a living wage to an employee, then the employer himself should do the work. It is HIS business, after all.

Point 4 is also right on, but in addition to your arguments, small businesses and some large ones like the automakers, are crushed beneath the cost of providing health insurance to employees. It is a mathematical and actuarial fact that the larger the insurance pool, the lower the unit cost. A universal single payer not-for-profit system provides the highest benefit per cost ratio. Currently, approximately 50% of the US health care expenditures come from the treasury in the form of direct payments and tax breaks. Per capita cost of US health care is double that of any industrialized nation, which means that current treasury outlays alone could fully insure everyone in a Canadian, British, French, or Scandinavian system. But there would be no billion dollar CEO salaries, private jets with gold fixtures in the lavatories, or golden parachutes for when the looting is through.

And that takes me to your last point. The cure for outrageous executive salaries is relatively simple. First, limit the deductability of executive salaries from corporate tax returns. Set the limit to 30-40x the median US paycheck. Second, restore the 71% marginal tax bracket for salaries over $3 million or thereabouts.

First, take that $500 Bil. and make everybody's mortgage interest rate 3% or 4%.

Second ... Glass/Stiegel.

Third, The Minimum Wage has got to be replaced with an actual Living Wage.

(No comment at the moment on 5 and 6)

The final concession to health INSURANCE rather than health CARE being the framing of choice for the issue, came when Hillary hit the brick wall of resistance to her health-CARE plan in the first Clinton admn.

Now we are left with the ever-present middle-man, the "insuror", wedging out a bigger and bigger administrative slice of the cost of our medical care. Add to that the HMO shareholders who now demand a dividend and ever-increasing revenues, and the entire health CARE concept has been hijacked by Wall Street.

The crossover investment by both doctors and HMO shareholders in pharmy and med-tech represents an egregious conflict of interest circle, that more than any other factor has contributed to the rising (spiking) cost of health care.

SO while I agree with your assessment on a fundamental level, just posing health CARE as the issue rather than health INSURANCE sets Sysiphus to work again.

But, it is surely a stone worth rolling...