Now it's time to hear real solutions to the economic crisis.

[backscatter712]

At this point, I know two things.

First, the economic crisis we're seeing today is real. It's not just Bush crying wolf. A liquidity crisis could cause a devastating economic train wreck that will cause countless people to lose their jobs, their homes, their life savings.

Second, the Paulson bailout plan was not a good solution to this mess. In fact, it's downright awful. It amounts to "Gimme $750 billion or the economy gets it!" Congress made some marginal improvements by adding some oversight, limiting things like golden parachute severance packages, etc. but the bailout was still horribly flawed and not guaranteed to solve the problem.

So what I'd like to see is ideas on dealing with this crisis the right way. Maybe a rescue package for foreclosed homeowners including monetary aid and a moratorium on foreclosures for a few months? Bankruptcy reform that does things like letting a bankruptcy or foreclosure judge keep people in their homes, say by rewriting terms of the mortgage - turning an outrageously unfair ARM or interest-only mortgage into a low-interest fixed-rate mortgage and telling the bank they need to let the homeowner start making payments on those terms before seizing and auctioning the house. Maybe a smaller bank bailout package with heavy oversight and restrictions on how the money can be spent? Or how about the .gov buying out or even seizing failing banks outright, putting them under government management, so when the banks become profitable again, the taxpayers get a piece of the profits?

Ideas?