A bailout in the dark?

Sir Mark Fish and Benn Steil in "Root out bad debt or more pain will follow" December 21 make clear the problem that the government has in helping out the subprime mortgage mess namely that the whole securitization process with its slicing and dicing has made it difficult to see where the final losses really lie, and therefore, while reaching out in the dark to help you might mess it up even more. Fish and Steil recommend the purchase of the underlying mortgages at deep discounts while I would prefer buying the houses where a real bona-fide debtor lives at a discount and arranging for a lease and sale back contract that makes sense for the taxpayer and the current owner. Anyhow whatever route is taken one needs at least to be sure that the underlying problem is cleared once and for all since experience says that there is nothing more expensive that keeping a problem pending in the sole expectation of losing less