Worthless Debt

Editor,

Propping up with taxpayer dollars today the same house of cards that led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression is exactly the wrong (predictably Republican) course of action.

Leave aside for the moment that repealing Glass-Steagall was a stupid move because it resulted in the rampant over-leveraging (to buy worthless paper, no less) that it was designed to prevent.

Wall Street gamblers who bought debt that cannot be paid should lose the money they risked on it, and home owners who can't pay their mortgages should have their mortgages reset to values they can afford to pay.

To prop this Wall Street house of cards up with taxpayer dollars is to convert the U.S. Treasury into one more hedge fund, which itself will ultimately go bankrupt because the house of cards it is supporting consists of worthless debt.

re: "Stocks Slump as Investors Run to Safety" (9/18/2008)