Bush is apparently rejecting any bail-outs of mortgage lenders

I think maybe help them out, but not bail them out. I think that whatever help they may received only after completing a course on money management and budgeting. I have been on the other side of that fence, and it wasn't poor planning or overextending myself, I was due to changes in circumstances. Though we may plan for many things, we cannot plan for everything. A few years back, a mill near here shut down causing around 700 people to be out of work. Being a small town, there wasn't jobs to even come close to what they were making for those that were lucky enough to find one. I think that there should be help for those that need it, but I don't think the government should just go out and buy people houses when they get into a tight.

Hi dragon54u, In my opinion, if the market was left to sort itself out without manipulation and government intervention to protect the interests of the rich bankers, then whatever pain that had to be suffered would have been over and done with years ago. The distortion of normal market forces to save the greedy from the consequences of their actions is just going to make the inevitable economic collapse substantially worse than it needed to be. The pain, when it finally takes hold, is going to be ten times worse because it has been delayed by successive games of smoke and mirrors and musical chairs. To be honest, I think Americans are already in an economic crisis, but the government is still in denial. And it'll probably stay that way until something sufficiently awful happens to motivate common people to get off their complacent butts, get organized and revolt against the people in power who have orchestrated the whole mess. Meanwhile, none of that helps with the day to day pain of trying to make ends meet. Even here in Australia, where we're supposedly enjoying an economic boom on the back of China's and India's economic growth, the divide between the rich and the poor is getting ever wider, and a lot of the people who think they are rich are already bankrupt with debt but haven't woken up to the fact yet. And same as in America, the pollies here (who live filthy rich lifestyles at taxpayers' expense) haven't got the faintest idea about how the common folk live.