Housing "Rescue" Bill

I'm sure by now almost everyone has heard of this bill and the different provisions in it. I like to think of it more as a plan that bails out the borrowers and lenders that made and took loans with little chance of being repaid. When a loan is made with no chance of being repaid by the borrower the lender should get ready for getting $0 back from that borrower - somehow the idea that the tax payer would run to the rescue and help the lender recover 90% of the current value of the home seems to be a different outcome than the natural one. The plan shifts some of the burden from the excess generated by bad debts to borrowers that did not have the ability to repay to honest and hardworking tax payers that did not live beyond their means.

The only rational for this rescue effort is to avoid a repeat of the "great" depression and may be it is worth it (I'm not educated enough to judge if we are tipping into another "great"-er depression) however regulators and the federal reserve officials were sleeping at the wheel when the economy was generating a lot of these loans (they only figured that an move during the boom would be an intervention with operation of free markets and innovation) - suddenly they have figured out in the bust that intervention with the operation of free markets is not only required but the only way out.