I have no expertise whatsoever in financial markets.

So this $700 billion bailout to save the American (and world's) economy?

I have no idea if it is a wise thing to do, or not.

But I do have one question...

Near as I can tell, we're in this mess because of the greed of power-lenders who worried more about immediate profit than long-term stability of the investments they were pawning off on others. Or the ability of borrowers to actually pay off their loans when interest rates rose and property values did not.

So why is Congress even considering Dubya's benefit package which will save the asses of those greedy SOBs, umm, I mean CEOs, who created and profited from the mess, while leaving all the indebted borrowers still in debt up over their eyeballs, just to the US Government instead of a profit-taking corporation?

Seems to me it would be better to make that $700 billion available to ordinary citizens and retirement funds as low interest loans to refinance themselves out of their hole of debt. That way, the financial institutions get back the money they loaned, just not all the exorbitant interest they were hoping to collect. And the government (and we taxpayers) would eventually get most of the bailout money back, just over 30 years at say, 7%-8%.

Rather than watching it all disappear into the pockets of wealthy con artists, leaving the rest of the country still in debt.

Or is that too simple?