Why get all complicated? These loan services won't or can't get their acts together to renegotiate loans, but somebody ALWAYS seems to show up to forclose.

Here in Philadelphia, we tood advantage of that fact to reach a solution. When the banks or servicer wants to forclose, our sherrif says "fat chance." Until the mortgage company rep shows up in court, they don't get title. Simple as that - Sherrif John Green will not play ball.

Funny thing - they do show up. And once you have somebody face to face with a homeowner and an officer of the court, if things can possibly work out, they work it out. Sometimes forclosure is the only option, but we don't have to pay these jerks to sit down and cut their losses.

No carrot, all stick.

Home improvements are a discretionary expense. I'm putting off little jobs on my house because that is the easiest thing to cut out of my budget. In a sustained downturn, Home Depot and Lowes will see a bump as people do necessary jobs on their own. However, I suspect their profits are more dependent on stainless steel gas grills, kitchens remodeling, etc. You don't pay for all that square footage selling caulk, spackle and paint. I can and do get all those at my corner hardware store.

Why is it the Republicans argue that the stimuls programs should not be created because they might outlive the stimulus, but that we can't allow the Bush tax cuts to expire because that would be a tax increase?

This is the stuff that makes me want to stop being a liberal. The cartoon was not particularly funny, but in the local context of a chimp shooting, it was merely offensive to chimps. Even without knowing about the chimp story, I thought it was a joke about moneys typing Hamlet.

In some markets, buying a house you couldn't afford was a rational choice. Even starter homes were out of reach for middle class families. Everybody thought pricess would keep going up forever, so it would made perfect sense to strech for that starter home now or risk never being able to afford a home again.

When I wanted to move in 2006, a realtor told me I would have to take out a home equity loan on my current house and use it to buy the new one, then sell the old house. She said nobody would sell on contingency in the current market. I didn't take her advce because I'm a pessimist, but my friend did. He lost both houses.

Apart from a few scoundrels, most people in trouble now did what any free-market Republican would have recomended. As a result, even people like me who took fewer risks are left in houses worth less than they paid.

It's one thing to be against same sex benefits based on your religious or moral beliefs. But there is no moral justification in any religion for refusing to support voluntary HIV testing that could prevent a child from being born with HIV. The Republicans are particularly fond of slippery sllope arguments but this guy needs to be thrown off a cliff.

Our experience in the Clinton era suggests that taxing the rich makes everybody richer, especially the rich. When Uncle Sam take's Daddy Warbucks' money, that money gets spent on stuff at companies Daddy Warbucks owns. If it is used to pay down debt (as if), that depresses yields on treasuries and forces people to buy more stocks instead. This is win win.

Remember the Superman movie when he threw all our nuclear weapons into the sun? Could we work on that?

Union labor. Public employees are unionized. They get pensions, greater job security, cost of living. The private sector is not unionized. It can outsource, temp out, layoff, and cut back at the drop of a hat.

Even before the stimulus, there was ample money for transit agencies to build stations, buy busses and trains, lay rails, etc. But there is never any operating money for drivers, conductors, maintenance, etc.

Car-lovers will say that's because roads don't need operating expenses, but I would argue that because a new highway creates more traffic around its ramps, upgrades to local roads should be considered maintenance foe the highway.

Not to take away from the valid point of this article, but one reason America has worse medical outcomes than Euurope has less to do with healthcare and more to do with class and immigration. We have a huge underclass - some neighborhoods in our cities resemble third world countries. We have immigrants - including illegals - who are actually from third world countries. Even witht the best health care in the world, the symptoms of poverty - violence, drug use, stress, poor nutrition, etc - would still bring down our overall health outcomes.

there is a small part of me that wishes mccain had won so that the republicans could finish off this country once and for all. not that i'm so keen on famine, social unrest, etc... it's just hard watching obama try to postpone the inevitable.

A lot of conservative principles make sense in theory but don't work. A lot of liberal principles make sense in theory but don't work. The difference is, at least liberals come up with new theories every so often. It's the difference between science and dogma.