It seems that even our presidential candidates are jumping on the home mortgage bandwagon, and are offering to the public what they want to hear.  This is, after all, an election year.  Sen. Clinton proposes a 30 billion dollar fund to help those in trouble with mortgages, and Sen. Obama upped the tally this week from 10 billion to thirty, I think following Clinton’s lead.

All of this of course comes after the bailout of Bear Stearns, which has a lot of people hot under the collar.  What started out as a $2 a share deal mysteriously jumped to $10,  and it gave CEO James Cayne an opportunity to bail out of his shares, which he quickly dumped.  I am still trying to figure that one out.  I have heard that a lot of BS shareholders are very unhappy about the sale, and a ton of money has been lost, especially by the investor Lewis.  Makes one wonder what money changed hands under the table on this one.  The news said that Cayne was calmly playing in a bridge tournament in Tennessee when the bottom fell out of BS.  One would think he would wish to be on the front line.  Of course, we don’t all travel in those circles, so it is hard telling what news he had before everyone else.

Sen. McCain is of course against any kind of bailout.  He feels as many do that the people who got themselves in this mess should have known better, and I suppose that line of reasoning is okay if everyone were a lawyer.  I have to think that a lot of the people that are in this mess hadn’t a clue as to the huge resets that put so many into trouble.

Watching the Bear Stearns playout is a comedy of errors.  I do not feel really good about the way it went down, especially when so many people on Main Street are in a world of hurt.  But that is just one man’s opinion…