As we helplessly watch the crumbling of the economy and the "bailout " or "rescue" of the greedy people and companies that caused it, we wonder why there's little being offered the victims.

We also wonder how the housing market will stabilize while millions of foreclosed properties continue to proliferate in a rapidly growing glut of homes, dragging values further down.

As we hear of more and more people being forced from their homes, our treasury secretary and federal bank chairman have dispatched their lieutenants to assess the value of the nearly $700 billion worth of illiquid mortgage backed securities we are committed to buy from the bankrupt and nearly bankrupt banks and investors.

Bundled in these financial instruments or "derivatives" are possibly millions of actual homes and properties which have already been foreclosed upon and which the government (taxpayers) will soon own.

Many more of the loans against the these properties are expected to default as the economy worsens over the coming or years and owners are are unable to pay.

Buying active loans is one thing, but buying the physical properties covered by defaulted loans is quite another.

What will we do with all these distressed properties, many of which are unmaintained, stripped, boarded up or have otherwise fallen into various states of disrepair?

So far, we have heard only about buying up loans, but nothing about the fact that many or even most of the loans we are assuming are essentially dead and unpaid, yet we haven't heard anyone talk about the practical aspects of exactly how these physical properties will be marketed. 

How will the already depressed housing market react to the infusion of all these properties (financial experts expect at least 5 million over the next five years) which will require many more thousands of dollars to make salable or rentable?

Will we end up giving these homes away for a song to different investors who will turn them for a profit or will we sell them directly?

How will people be able to buy these properties if they can't meet stringent borrowing requirements?

How many potential buyers are out there with 800 plus FICO scores?

Will we also end up providing financing to "unqualified" buyers who cannot meet the stringent financing requirements demanded by private lenders?

Before we buy up all these bad assets, perhaps we should thoroughly rethink the purchase.

Why can't banks, and other investor/owners examine their own securities culling the good loans from the bad and deal with the disposition of their distressed properties, selling the defaulted properties at whatever the prevailing market value?

Why should government be in the real estate business?

Now that the senate has passed a tricked out version of the original Bailout Bill with some added porcine earmarks and sent it back to the house, will the House bend to Republican opposition and refuse to pass it at all?

Or should the house strip the earmarks and send another version of a pure bill back to the senate?

Should we even be considering a bailout of banks without a true bailout of the people caught up in the mess created by greedy Wall Streeters?

It appears that many people, including half the nation's lawmakers, believe that a bailout of our rapidly failing financial system is unnecessary, unwise and uncalled for.

But to many it appears increasingly clear that the nation may have no choice but to hold its collective nose, bite the bullet and bail out the banks holding toxic illiquid assets by relieving them of the bad debt and buying the presently valueless paper in the hope that there's some value down the line when the markets settle.

The bailout might or might not prevent the country from continuing its slide into depression, but can we afford to gamble with the nation's economic heart while most top economists warn of the impending catastrophe should we refuse and hope the problem works itself out?