Why should the $700 BILLION go directly to the banks?

If the mortgages are paid, the derivatives should have their full value, if not; some folks should go to jail.

A Harvard study suggests that 50% of personal bankruptcies are related to hospital bills and in many of these cases, the person had health insurance, but lost the insurance in the course of the disease or injury.

Nearly half of all Americans who file for bankruptcy do so because of medical expenses, according to a new study released jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School * * * "Good educations, decent jobs, and health insurance were no guarantee that a person wouldn't be wiped out by an illness or accident. We believe the current policy debates are overlooking a critical problem: A broken health care finance system is bankrupting middle class America."

"Our study is fairly shocking," explained Steffie Woolhandler, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. "We found that, too often, private health insurance is an umbrella that melts in the rain."

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2005/02/03_bankruptcy.php

On the other hand, the investment banks engaged in risky behavior such as 30 to 1 financial leverage and poorly understood derivative transactions. It was the leverage and derivatives that amplified the foreclosure crisis into a worldwide economic crisis.

Congressional candidate Alan Grayson(D), a Harvard educated attorney, wrote in an e-mail

Here is more context. $700 billion is over $2000 for every man, woman and child in America. For a family of seven, like mine, it's over $15,000. Someone just took $15,000 from me and my family, and gave it to anonymous bondholders whom I've never met, who have done nothing for me, to whom I owe nothing and -- right now -- I really don't like.

More context: you could take one percent of that amount -- one percent! -- and pay off the delinquency on every home mortgage in arrears in America. And keep people from losing their homes.

The financial system needs to be rescued, but we can save real people and not just corporations if we act wisely.

As the AARP lobbying group put it, "Divided We Fail."

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL