I bet you wouldn’t lend it to Wall Street to help them (and us) out of the current financial crisis but that is exactly what Secretary Paulson wants to do. 700 billion dollars works out to about $5000 per American household but the total cost of bailouts, including those that have already taken place could very well add up to $10,000 for every U.S. household.

Congress wants to add some individual aid for troubled mortgages, but I say scrap the corporate bailout and help the individuals. The financial corporations are just going to get themselves into trouble again. I took out a sub-prime mortgage about two years ago in order to purchase my first home. With home prices falling I am now likely in an upside down mortgage (i.e. I owe more than my home is worth). I’ll tell you what I would do with $10,000. I would put it on my mortgage and pull it out of that upside down state and bringing myself closer to a point where I could refinance and lower my payments. What would I do with lower payments? I would probably (definitely) spend more money in the American economy. Would others do the same? Most likely. I say let Wall Street fail and bail out the consumer! We’ll re-spark the economy.

Speaking of sub-prime mortgages. Because of the nature of my loan I am forced to pay for Private Mortgage Insurance every month, it is a significant amount of money. I have to pay this because these kinds of loans are risky and this is an insurance policy that is supposed to cover the cost of failures in this area. Where is that money going? Shouldn’t it be used to help out these financial institutions? If that isn’t what it’s for I want it back! Oh and by the way, although I took out a sub-prime mortgage I manage to make my payments. I did research, I knew what I was getting in to. I knew it was difficult, but I planned accordingly so I could make the payments. I have to be responsible and cut-back but the benefits of home ownership make it worth it for me. Obviously if I knew what the market was going to do I would have saved my money and waited for prices to fall before buying my home. Despite my crystal ball failing, nobody is suffering on my account but me. I wish the same could be said for others, like those CEOs who took the same risks I did, but on a much grander scale and some how managed to profit from it while others suffer!

As a last note: I realize that the 10,000 is a loan, but it is being added to my debt load and what do I get in return? Hopefully the government will profit from lending my money to Wall Street, but undoubtedly I will not earn any interest on the money. In fact when they get the money back the government probably won’t even bother to pay down the debt because they will have added so much other spending to government by then that they’ll need it to keep the institution running. It wouldn’t surprise me if the income derived from these loans is written into the next budget to help “balance the budget.” The profits should go only one place, to pay back the loan the government is taking out to finance this bail out. Our government has too much debt. The whole world has too much debt. How about some real fiscal responsibility!