The question I want answered is simple, even though I don't expect to ever hear an answer: if We the People are (via our government) buying all those mortgages for cheap, why not let the mortgage-holders pay off their loan at the same price that We the People paid to buy their debt?

In other words: Joe Dohn owes $100,000 on his mortgage. We the People bail out a big bank by buying his mortgage for $1,000 (I have no idea if that's the ratio; this is just an example.) Let Joe pay an extra $1,000 in taxes this year -- or more, maybe -- and forgive his debt.

The financial sector wins because they got bailed out. Joe wins because he gets to keep his house, and rather than spending the rest of his life under crushing debt he can be a productive member of society. We the People win because we get paid back, and the Government which represents us wins because they don't have to deal with the overhead of harassing Joe until he declares bankruptcy because he'll never be able to pay off the full $100,000 anyway (which is why it's a "bad" debt in the first place.)

I know why this won't happen. But why can't it happen? Is my math wrong?

A few days ago, my friend Neil gave a brief answer to the question "Spamfighter, howcome you got into spamfighting?"

I get asked that a lot, too -- and while my answers vary depending on my mood at the time (and usually go on way longer than the questioner actually probably wanted), the core hasn't ever really changed: I think e-mail is cool.

More than that, I totally love the idea of worldwide, near-instantaneous yet non-interruptive human-to-human communication. I love it like Gir loveded the piggy, only slightly more sane and hopefully a lot less like an alien robot.

Sad bunny. Not much else to say.