An article on the subprime mess

Take a look at Building Sandcastles: The Subprime Adventure. Clearly written, I think is a pretty good explanation of the mess and the problems of fxing it:

This political season, candidates are calling for action, but shying away from a "bailout"—an understandable conundrum, since government is sailing between Scylla and Charybdis as it plots "solutions." Tighter credit will eliminate the shakiest loans, but will shut off many credit-impaired borrowers who truly could make the payments. In fact, today's credit crunch has exacerbated the crisis, by making it hard for the homeowner with a toxic subprime mortgage to refinance to a fixed-rate product or to sell his home. As for bailing out the hedge funds, whose executives earned million-dollar bonuses in the heyday of this bonanza, the government, eager to bolster the economy, must be leery of rescuing Wild West investor/risk-takers.

As this empire crumbles, the people at the base—the waitress in Detroit, the laborer in Sacramento, the daycare worker in Boston—will lose not just the dream and security of a financial asset, but their homes.