Wall Street's amorality and the current financial mess. An actual easy solution, newly put in place.

Amoral 1. Neither moral or immoral. 2. Not caring about right or wrong.

If Sen. Obama wants to yet again administer a coup de grace, this time on economic policy, and prove once more he is a Christian, let him quote 1 Timothy 6:10, which begins "For it is the love of money that is the root of all evil--." It is not money but the love of it that corrupts the human soul, with all the greed and power that comes with it.

We are given at birth with both a free will and the responsibility for the consequences of our freely taken actions. In the financial community, i.e. on Wall Street this seems to mean that they can create any exotic product they can concieve, take all the profits, bank it off shore to avoid paying taxes on it, hire lobbyists to; limit any taxes they might have to pay to 15% and pressure govenment to not regulate these new products. In addition, they beleive if the financial community grows so big that if it fails they can fall back on Uncle Sam to bail them out, insuring that failure to do will have catastrophic consequences for the overall economy. A sort of "economic black mail."

It's like they can go to 'Vegas, play the crap tables, keep all private winnings and pass the losses off onto the public. If caught, they take Golden Parachutes and escape any hardships, any penalities for their bad bets.

Fortunately someone in the Senate did the right thing and included a new tool for use by the Secretary of the Treasury, in the recently signed economic rescue package, a tool favored by the majority of economists, Credit Default Swaps - CDS's. (Also called a "stock injection plan".) The CDS's give taxpayers preferred stock in exchange (hence that name swap) for loans given, dollar for dollar. They are much easier to use; there are no bad loans to evaluate, assume no ownership of bad loans nor assume responsibility for maintenance of vacant foreclosed property. All the latter is left for the banks to deal with, acknowledging and capitalizing on their expertise, thus forcing them to clean up the mess they made, not we taxpayers.

This is not, as conservatives claim, the beginning of "creeping socialism" because it's a temporary fix that self liguidates; puts we taxpayers, via preferred stock, in a first-to-be repaid position, and forces the financial community to deal with the mess they made. Moreover it puts stock holders in a second-to-be paid position, increasing market pressure for disposition of the bad loans even faster than government actions.

Using CDS's we avoid creating a vast new federal bureaucracy (with all it's added cost to we taxpayers); one that is ill suited to the task. In the short term we don't go into the banking business, we simply cover, temporarily, the banks bad debts and are repaid first, when the banks do re-establish themselves, insuring market stability for the US and the world as a whole.

In the long term, use of CDS's impose much needed discipline on Wall Street et. al., strengthens the banking system, making loans to Main Street and the business community (we taxpayers) more readily available, lending monies to consumers who want to buy now realistically priced properties, at affordable interests rates, all under proper public supervision. In addition, when all these foreclosed properties are purchased, local property tax bases are stabilized, insuring long term stability of local government financing. Moreover it keeps business humming, keeps and restores jobs, allowing we taxpayers to provide for our own economic well being.

Sen. Obama can close the deal with voters simply by pledging to, 1. champion the use of CDS's as his primary economic rescue program, and 2. promise to appoint a Secretary of the Treasury who will use them as his/her first line of action.

We here in the progressive Christian community should be educating ourselves and the public on this program and be championing it to the Democratic party.

BTW I heard about this program yesterday on public radio's This American Life program. I intend to purchase a copy of the program from the local station. I even heard about it in a skit on Garrison Keller's "A Prairie Home Companion" last night on that same PBS station.

Rich