Some people must be made to 'sink'.... those who are implicated in the 'morality' or lack thereof in all this should be sunk down a sinkhole.

The BIG SHOTS of Wall street who allowed the shabby lending practices and allowed 'greed is good' to reign.. and those who took advantage of this should all be made to payyyyyyyyyyyyyy.. and pay substantially.

All major assets acquired during this time by Wall street grubs should be forfeit.... surrendered.

-Huge bonuses..(cash payback)
-Luxury Cars and Condominiums. (sold for capital money)
-Huge caches of Jewellery found to be sourced to income derived from such practices.

Of course.. a little bit of plain 'repentance' is what it's about.
Zachaeus shows us the way when speaking to Jesus

"Lord, to those I have defrauded, I restore fourfold"

If campaign donations sway the outcome in favor of keeping all those perks and beamers and whatever then it would be a sorry day for the USA, but then....God is not mocked.. people will reap what they sow, it might not be exactly when we might like it...but reap they will..if not now..later.

No matter what happens the Americans need to show increased compassion towards those dismissed from their jobs because of the crisis by increasing social security.

When people get sacked...families get stressed and destroyed.

Australia needs to get ready "social security wise" as well.
The influx into Centrelink could be huge?

In one of our churches in Sydney we are already preaching the need for prayer over "last days/endtimes" matters and the need to be ready for the great influx into the Christian churches because of whats coming.

Years ago in Australia we had the Commonwealth Bank, which really was the Commonwealth Bank, 100% Government owned. It ran at a profit, although nothing like the profit it makes today, and made a dividend to the Australian Government. There was no such thing as charges for savings accounts, and there was nothing like a monthly fee on home loans. The private banks were doing OK, they still made profits but didn't charge the fees like they do today. Perhaps if a bank needed bailing out in Australia it would be a good time to nationalise the institution concerned and return to the days when we had a Government run institution competing with a free market economy.

Gibo, there may be a big influx into the churches when times get tough, (History has shown that Church attendance increases during times of war and economic depression) but sadly I have to say, many of these will leave when their circumstances improve. I had to admit to my Pastor about a year ago that I had never been in such a better position financially that it was easy to feel that God wasn't necessary. An important lesson here is, no matter how well off you are now, it's no guarantee that you will stay that way.

Our booming economy in the last 10 - 15 years has been due to people cashing out equity on homes (now the reason for the financial crisis) and buying consumer goods such as big screen TVs. Its all been done on borrowed money and now we have to pay.

Graham Y "On the one hand, the banks ought to bear the costs for their own bad decisions, but on the other, if that means that viable banking businesses are destroyed through the fall-out, that would seem to be worse."

My take on this is

the ones in the pooh are clearly dealing with a "viability" problem.

the one not in the pooh are the "viable" ones you refer to, who will not be destroyed.

My take,

the market and the banks are the "experts",

the government, deploying scarce tax payer funds, it not.

Leave it to the experts.

their mess, let them sort it out.

Which seems to be the sentiment of most Republican Congress persons.

Alternatively, any "baleout" should attach benefits, in the longer term to taxpayers by way of future income in return for their substitute "investment funds" and for accepting the "risk" which the banks seem to have overlooked.

Bailing out of the crisis will only defer the pain. Better to let the recession (or in reality probably a depression) start and get over with as quickly as possible. The problem with the growth mantra of capitalism is that we do have limited resources, and so to maintain the ability to grow every now and then we need a spectacular crash. Its going to hurt a lot of people, and those that deserve it least are going to be hurt the most of all. I might sound harsh, but I face the reality that despite not having a plasma tv, I am likely to lose my home if this blows up much more, so face the same consequences as anyone else.

http://blogs.theage.com.au/business/archives/2008/09/failures_catastrophic_for_us_economy.html

Julie Bishop's blog neatly sums up the US crisis. It seems to me
that a number of people in a number of areas, need to be held
accountable.

For instance, why do ratings agencies, who rated these loans
AAA and got paid for it, escape with impunity?