If we're lucky a 20-something blond American chick will go missing somewhere in the world, and we can forget all about who's fault this was and let them get back to business as usual.

A friend of mine has been noting these episodes for years and has labelled it the "White Woman in Danger" syndrome.

Yes, but before you can stabilize the condition, you need to at least recognize the immediate problem. If the patient's lungs are shutting down, you might give him steroids, but if his lungs are shutting down because of an infection, you've made the problem worse because steroids inhibit the immune system. It's worth taking the extra minute to check his temperatue and make sure he's not running a fever first.

I can see you've never watched House. If you give the patient steroids and he gets better, it isn't an infection.

Alex, you're not asking to take the patient's temperature. It would take years to untangle the web of financial transactions.

Unfortunately, so few people understand how it got to this point that it will devolve quickly into the usual demogoguery and know-nothing populism.

If we're lucky a 20-something blond American chick will go missing somewhere in the world, and we can forget all about who's fault this was and let them get back to business as usual.

However, when all the patients are stabilized, there should be some hell to pay on how it got this bad this fast. Unfortunately, so few people understand how it got to this point that it will devolve quickly into the usual demogoguery and know-nothing populism.

Oh, and as for the medical analogy and transfusions, start with type O blood until you have time to learn more, since everyone can accept that.

But you've got 5 dying patients and only enough type O for 3.

FWIW, I don't much care for the bailout, though it may now be the best of a number of bad alternatives.

Like I said earlier, now that everybody is banking (pun intended) on a bailout to save Wall Street, anything else, even if it's a better solution, will probably spark a panic that will make things worse.

Worse case scenario then, the government still gets the same assets for the same price as they're proposing now. More likely some of those companies will simply pay off the loan, taking a slight loss on their end but avoiding bankruptcy. The strong institutions survive, and the weak ones don't drag down the strong ones.

I figure my share of the debt to be incurred for this bailout to be around $40,000 given the latest estimates. Almost makes me wish I had gone out and bought way too much house with too little down a few years ago, except I still have to live with myself.

Good points there. Best I could offer to counter is to hire accountants from several different firms? Charge them with finding a consensus?

Like I said, this was a proposal looking for flaws, so I appreciate the comments.

An outside firm would take the heat off of the gov't and place it on themselves. They would be tasked with finding an accurate value in a hurry which is a contradiction in terms for an auditor. For fear of getting the wrong value, they will want to drag their feet as long as possible, which gets back to the timing issue. But if they get the value wrong, they become the new scapegoats, allowing those acutally repsonsible for this mess off the hook. Even if they get the value right, there will be an unending argument by the various sides that it's wrong, that we need to do something more drastic because so much time has been lost, and inevitably that it was a mistake to hire an outside firm.

The only outsiders that would take this on would have to be incompetent to begin with otherwise they would see the trap they would fall into. That doesn't help anyone either.

I agree that timing is obviously an issue, but an attempt to value mortgage based debt would have to relieve the stronger banks and prevent a widescale credit freeze, right? And a strong and fast triage of valuations through the worst banks would assist in liquidations, where the Fed could be the purchaser of last resort but the debt sold out on the open market, like a fast paced Chapter 11.

I really do think that more information is needed before we cut what is now a 1.8 trillion dollar check. To torture the medical analogy further, yes, we know the patient has blood loss, but we need to make sure that we have the right blood type before we transfuse!

Also, a better medical analogy of the problem right now is that the patient has gone into shock due to massive blood loss. That must be addressed first, regardless of whatever else may seem to be wrong, though without question these are more systemic problems that must be addressed before the patient can be released. To torture this analogy a little more, the last thing anybody typically wants to be concerned with at a time like this is how it will be paid for.

Maybe we just need a way to short the housing market to further mitigate the risk.

The rule in emergency medicine is first try to stabilize the patient's condition.

Yes, but before you can stabilize the condition, you need to at least recognize the immediate problem. If the patient's lungs are shutting down, you might give him steroids, but if his lungs are shutting down because of an infection, you've made the problem worse because steroids inhibit the immune system. It's worth taking the extra minute to check his temperatue and make sure he's not running a fever first.

It is likely that Al-Qaeda could use sneaky means to own all of our assets through revenues gained from poppy growing in Afghanistan. If Bush doesn't have a clean bill we risk another 9/11.

This must be rectified ASAP.