Relief

The big story today is this one, from the WSJ:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government's latest plan to aid struggling homeowners could move as many as three million people into more-affordable mortgages, according to people familiar with the effort.

The proposal, which has been designed by the Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is close to being finalized. Estimated to cost between $40 billion and $50 billion, the plan would have the government agree to share a portion of any losses on a modified mortgage offered by lenders.

Funding for the plan could potentially come out of the $700 billion financial-rescue program authorized by Congress earlier this month. The plan, which was previewed during Congressional testimony last week, would represent one of the most aggressive and sweeping moves to address the nation's foreclosure mess, among the last elements of the crisis yet to be addressed by concerted government intervention.

Sound familiar? It should, because it was the subject of my very first blog post here. The whole point of the bailout is to ensure that not only banks, but people as well, can save the equity they have and/or create new equity. And what's good for Wall St., or for GM, should be good for the typical subprime homeowner as well. They all made mistakes, and it's not "fair" that they're all getting a mulligan, but "fair" is less important than figuring a way out of this mess. And creating 4 million new renters ain't it.

From the same article above:

As many as 7.3 million American homeowners are expected to default on their mortgages between 2008 and 2010, with 4.3 million of those losing their homes, according to Moody's Economy.com, a research firm.

Meanwhile, the economy shrunk like a frightened turtle in the 3rd quarter, its biggest contraction in 7 years.

Barack and Bubba, together at last.

And finally, Christopher Buckley keeps his dad a-spinnin'. It's been a lot of fun to see a bunch of the big name reeps abandoning McCain's ship, and in this installment Buckley takes a crack at an early draft of Johnny Mac's concession speech. The best part:

Looking on the bright side, it looks like I’ll get to go to bed a little earlier than I’d hoped to tonight. To tell the truth, I’m so tired after this 22-month (looking away from TelePrompTer) clusterf ... after this very long campaign that I won’t even have to take a sleeping pill.