‘Puter’s not certain what to think of the bailout. ‘Puter doesn’t trust Paulson much at all, with his “everything’s OK, nothing to see here, move along” shtick of a month ago coupled with his “the sky is falling” position of today. But it’s much more difficult to ignore Warren Buffet, who thinks the bailout is a necessity.

Regardless, there are some really bad ornaments the Democrats in Congress are going to try to hang on the bailout bill Christmas tree. The Wall Street Journal writes on the worst of the hangers-on today.

Permitting borrowers to modify the terms and conditions of their mortgages in bankruptcy is, as the WSJ notes, a sure-fire way to cause future interest rates to rise precipitously on home mortgages. But that’s small change compared to the damage it will do to the already shaky balance sheets of banks, both of commercial banks and the rotting husks of the investment banks.

Aside from Freddie and Fannie’s contribution, the next major contributor the credit crisis has been mark-to-market accounting. Now, ‘Puter ain’t too bright, but if banks are going to continue to be required to mark their holdings to market values, then what’s the market value for a mortgage whose terms and conditions can be changed at the whim of a bankruptcy judge?

“Thirty years at six percent is too steep. I can pay the note and mortgage amortized over 100 years, at 1% interest, so long as you forgive all the past due interest, and write the debt down by 50%. Does that work, you honor?” Based on ‘Puter’s experience with the bankruptcy bench around the country, many judges are likely to be sympathetic to less exaggerated requests.

Sure, the mortgages in your portfolio are paying like clockwork now, but once the borrowers file bankruptcy, what happens? The short answer: no one knows. So, how do you price that sort of uncertainty? You can’t. So what’s the market value of the asset? To be careful, better price it around zero, because there’s no market. This scenario caused the first crisis. The Democrat geniuses in Congress are unwittingly going to use this crisis’ cure to precipitate a new and improved Meltdown II: Electric Boogaloo.

‘Puter’s canning lots of vegetables and plans on harvesting more than a few deer for use in the bunker during the coming darkness.

Thanks, Congress!

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.