But if it were only home loans that were being guaranteed, it wouldn't cost $800M (which, face it, Uncle Sam doesn't actually have at this moment, so the - unintended? - consequence is that now the Gov't is in hock to the banks too). What makes it so expensive are the loans banks made to other banks which turned out to be waste paper. In any honest financial system this would be called fraud, not supported by the Government.
I'm sure that twentyfive years ago, people in Russia were saying "Only an anarchist would want the Soviet system to collapse".Only an anarchist would truly want the worlds financial system to collapse.
Which, since Japan hasn't actually been hurting badly as a result, proves that massive action wasn't actually necessary.At least the US is taking massive action, how many years has Japan been in recession?