As much as this potentially $1T bailout of the financial institutions smacks of socialism, it will not necessarily be that much net cost to the taxpayer. Essentially, the Government will buy the bad loans from any institution willing to take the money and submit to the Government oversight that will come with it *at current market value*, which will effectively put a floor under real estate prices as Uncle Sam becomes the Great Mortgagor for loans that should never have been made in the first place. So, the shareholders will take a hit, but the upside is that all the bad paper can then be taken off the books at a known value. But it will allow more folks to stay in their homes, and then, since Uncle has *really* deep pockets (i.e. yours and mine), he can afford to hold those assets until they can be disposed of or renegotiated, hopefully for a profit, as happened with the RTC. The downside of all this can be clearly seen if you have checked the price of oil and other commodities today. You don't throw around $1T in new Government spending without affecting the value of the dollar.
