Fortunately, the House Republicans have his back. We hope. Here are their principles:

Economic Rescue Principles

Common Sense Plan to Have Wall Street Fund the Recovery, Not Taxpayers

* Rather than providing taxpayer funded purchases of frozen mortgage assets, we should adopt a mortgage insurance approach to solve the problem.

* Currently the federal government insures approximately half of all mortgage backed securities. (MBS) We can insure the rest of current outstanding MBS; however, rather than taxpayers funding insurance, the holders of these assets should pay for it. Treasury Department can design a system to charge premiums to the holders of MBS to fully finance this insurance.

Have Private Capital Injection to the Financial Markets, Not Tax Dollars

* Instead of injecting taxpayer capital into the market to produce liquidity, private capital can be drawn into the market by removing regulatory and tax barriers that are currently blocking private capital formation. Too much private capital is sitting on the sidelines during this crisis.

* Temporary tax relief provisions can help companies free up capital to maintain operations, create jobs, and lend to one another. In addition, we should allow for a temporary suspension of dividend payments by financial institutions and other regulatory measures to address the problems surrounding private capital liquidity.

Immediate Transparency, Oversight, and Market Reform

* Increase Transparency. Require participating firms to disclose to Treasury the value of their mortgage assets on their books, the value of any private bids within the last year for such assets, and their last audit report.

* Limit Federal Exposure for High Risk Loans: Mandate that the GSEs no longer securitize any unsound mortgages.

* Call on the SEC to audit reports of failed companies to ensure that the financial standing of these troubled companies was accurately portrayed.

* Wall Street Executives should not benefit from taxpayer funding.

* Call on the SEC to review the performance of the Credit Rating Agencies and their ability to accurately reflect the risks of these failed investment securities.

* Create a blue ribbon panel with representatives of Treasury, SEC, and the Fed to make recommendations to Congress for reforms of the financial sector by January 1, 2009.

Inappropriate regulation is a lot of what led to this. Too much regulation mandating "fair results" led to credit being extended to the uncreditworthy (And some pretty predatory borrowing practices), and lax oversight on the GSEs.

Anyone who isn't nervous right now is crazy, frankly.

This guy is the chairman of a bank that I watch (and invest in) and that bank always seemed well run. Everything he says in his doc rings true, but I'm not a financier or analyst so who knows.

But the things that really struck me are that the government should let the market punish those that made the bad decisions. Agreed. That's a capitalist principle.

But I also think that the government should punish those that helped the market make the bad decisions by lying about how their companies were doing. Either throw them in jail or force them to give their money back ... WITHOUT getting lawyers and class action lawsuits involved because then the money will go to the lawyers.

Also, mind you, this is only a few years after Enron. So clearly government oversight is not helping protect markets or investors. I think that to trust in that (in any plan) is just plain silly at this point.