There are a lot of hare-brained schemes around town to bailout the banks and other financial institutions that are reeling under the burden of hundreds of billions of dollars of bad mortgage debt. Many push these schemes as plan to help homeowners.

Let's be clear, giving hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the banks is a government handout to the banks. It is like welfare, except the checks are much bigger, and they are going to the banks' top executives and shareholders, not poor single mothers.

The government can keep the financial system functioning as the big banks go under without writing huge welfare checks to the super-rich. We just nationalize failing banks as Gordon Brown did with the Northern Rock bank in the United Kingdom. We replace the top management with competent people and then sell the bank back to the private sector as soon as its books are back in order. It's fun, simple, easy, and cheap. And, if we want to help low income people who are losing their homes, we offer them the own to rent option.

Happy Presidents Day!