Possibly this has been discussed and already discounted elsewhere - but is one possible approach to mitigate the current financial crisis what could be called a financial reset?
In a sense - at least financially - erase George Bush's second term by a mandatory revaluing of all real estate to what it was worth on Jan 1, 2004.
Isn't the root cause of most of the current financial crisis the rapid explosion in housing prices during the first part of George Bush's second term - immediately followed by a collapse in those same prices during the final year or so Bush's miserable reign. So why not reset the clock financially to 2004 to undo the massive financial damage caused by re-electing George Bush?
In practice, some form of Presidential mandate would force banks to revalue every home sold or refinanced in the past four years to 2004 levels. Now instead of most Banks teteering on the edge of bankruptcy thanks to holding mountains of bad real estate debt, those same bad debts (i.e., Zombie mortgage homes today worth less than what people paid) are erased with the simple stroke of Obamas pen. Homeowners with Zombie mortgages would now no longer need to contemplate walking away from their formerly worthless home and financial solvency in the banking system is restored to a large degree. Another possible economic benefit is that with reduced mortgage payments, many homeowners would now have a little more disposible income to spend to further help stimulate the economy.
For those that would argue against this as being Socialist or some other such nonsense. Isn't somewhat the same thing happening already - but in a much more disorganized and financially disruptive manner. Why not instead make the ongoing purely market driven devaluation of real estate into a much more controlled and predictable process and thus end the current financial crisis quickly? Obama has signaled that he is willing to make bold and decisive moves and with the current massive amount of power already bestowed onto the Federal Reserve, something of this magnitude could likely be pulled off without the need for 60 votes in the Senate.