There is a meltdown. And it's not as simple as just mortgages in default, it's the insane derivatives from these mortgages packaged and sold to the tune of trillions to cluesless global investors by Wall St and the entire Mortgage Industry in a quasi-criminal ponzi scheme that is causing the meltdown. To get to the part about footing the bill, we need to first understand how we come about owning it. This NPR transcript should clarify once and for all about the workings of the pyramid scheme and how it all started. The interviews with the players in the scheme are particularly stupefying...the SEC not only let these people get drunk, they handed them the car keys to the global pool of investment, the savings of billions of around the world: http://www.thislife.org/extras/radio/355_transcript.pdf We are bickering over whether to give Paulson-Bernanke $1 trillion carte blanche. The media and our politicians are not doing their job in telling it as it is - they've been asleep at the wheel or worse, partying in a drunken coke-addled stupor with Wall St. Pls. rec'd or better, link your blogs to this NPR transcript if you find its contents worthwhile.