So his actions are suspect, but his intentions are good. More hope and change, heavy on the hope, not so heavy on the change.

I like this guy more every day. What a treat to have a pol visibly growing in the job every day.

I think the policy debate is worth having. As was pointed out in several economic posts as recently as today, the root of our continuing economic problems is the excessive debt burden still borne by consumers. "Letting" the banks take some of the consequences of profligate lending and borrowing would make that happen more quickly and with less pain all around. That makes the cramdown a good tool for economic recovery without expanding the deficit or rewarding banks for making NINJA loans.

""Letting" the banks take some of the consequences of profligate lending"

I'd be all for it but when you get people like Paulsen and Geithner who share DNA with all the bankers, do you really expect change instead of patches.

If Merkley's deal works though, he can start working on taxpayer bankrutcy since we can't afford to keep paying PERS.

This reminds me of the Mortgage Holiday idea that surfaced about 2 years ago.

http://www.saveoureconomy.com/theplan.html

I wasn't a huge fan of the plan at the time, but in hindsight spending $600 billion of the Stimulus to allow everyone to defer mortgage payments for a year (and refinance) would have been more stimulative than the shovel-ready cr@p it was spent on.