Is the Bush-Paulson Bailout Our Only Alternative?

Are our only choices a massive bailout of Wall Street with no strings attached, or an economic collapse?

Lindsay Beyerstein Majikthise & David Cay Johnston Poynter Online have some excellent questions that I would like answered.

I have a few of my own:

The toxic debts are presented as the basic problem in the system. Paulson says that the US government must get into the loan business by buying these bad loans. Wouldn't it make more sense for the government to refinance these home loans directly? People who were cheated by greedy banks will have the opportunity to convert to an affordable loan, and the banks will have to live with the downside of risk.

They say that the credit markets are about to seize up. They've been wrong before. Let's wait and see for a while. If the credit markets really do dry up, we can use some of that $700 billion to make loans directly to people and small businesses.

They say that we will have massive unemployment if the Wall Street millionaires don't get their big bonuses. I see no reason to wait for another imaginary trickle down to come our way. Spend the money on infrastructure, alternative energy, and basic science research projects.

They told us not to depend on social security or pension plans. They forced us to set up our own retirement accounts. Now they say that we have to save Wall Street, or else we will lose our retirement money. I say that the above suggestions are likely to take care of our retirement accounts. If the IRA and 401K plans still tank, can't we come up with some sort of rebate plan to compensate people for the money that was stolen from their accounts?