Disclaimer: I thought of this randomly while at work earlier today. The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense. However, I am not an investment banker, nor an economics expert, nor even a big-shot within any industry whatsoever. I'm merely a progressive dude fed up with this mess, and I appeal to the greater brains at DKos to poke holes in my ridiculous idea.
Stream of consciousness follows, I apologize. Again, feel free to gently eviscerate the points that don't make sense:
Congress wants to spend a ridiculous amount of money bailing out troubled financial institutions. They wish to do this by essentially buying all of these bad investments; bad mortgages owed by people who cannot ever pay for them. At the same time they'll also give all the people that screwed us over the last 30 years a gigantic check with which to buy more hookers and blow with.
Screw that. Instead, take the money and outright purchase all of the foreclosed properties from the banks at at most half of their appraised foreclosure value. Pool all of these foreclosed homes into a new Federal program, something like the Federal Foreclosed Homes Department or whatever. (more below)
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