There seems to be a combination of confusion regarding "why this, why now?" here, righteous indignation, anger, etc. There is even an attempt to politicize this situation, which adds a little humor to a serious financial situation.

As a retired banker, I know that the Fed did what it had to do to stabilize the financial markets and particularly the housing industry. They are smart enough to know what the causes were and will likely plan some new regulations to address the causes in the future. Yes, I believe that regulation is necessary. Without it, or with inadequate regulation, the lure of money and simple greed spawns results such as this financial disaster, the S&L failures of twenty years or so ago, etc.

I'd guess that the people at the Fed are as angered at the lack of regulation and greed by those involved, all the way from the loan salesmen peddling the loans to the mortgage company underwriters to the Wall Street types who packaged up the mortgages and sold them as mortgage-backed securities to the investors who bought them and certainly including the executives at Fannie and Freddie who showed an amazing lack of judgement and greed while taking gobs of bonus money.

But in the end, everyone had to swallow hard and come up with the plan that was announced to stabilize things. The only statement made in the description of what was done that I found disingenuous was that the $100 billion wouldn't be an obligation of the taxpayers. C'mon. Where did the Fed get that $100 bil anyway? It certainly didn't come from the federal surplus--there isn't any.