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I hate to say it, but I have a sneaky suspicion that after the taxpayer gets a huge bill and jobs are destroyed and the rich get their parachutes, we will find that miraculously, these banks will have "WRITE UPS" instead of write downs and everything will be peachy except the value of the dollar and a few 401 pensions.

I'm no expert, but after you write down a piece of paper, you take it off your taxes and then it seems to come back to life with some value. If you or I said our car was destroyed and was worthless and took it off as a uninsured loss, could we sell it next year, even for $100?

It would be a short book for me to write what I think will happen, but lets say the end result will be a huge transfer of taxpayer wealth to Goldman Sachs, Merril Lynch, or Warren Buffet/Sorros types. The "worthless" paper will be bundled and called some other name of a product and sold to these types for 10 cents on the dollar and we will make the banks whole. Then they will re evaluate the value of said paper and sell off the assets for 50 cents on the dollar. This is no different than Enron, but you will see the taxpayer screwed and no one goes to prison. If there were only some gubmint official that cared, they would follow the money next year and write a best seller on who made out and who lost. Someone should go to prison. This much money shouldn't evaporate without punishment. You watch, it will be forgotten by Christmas.