Over the protests of housing advocates, the Federal Reserve has been accused of overstepping its charter on two key points. It's allowing Wall Street investment banks to borrow money from the central bank and it's guaranteeing $29 billion in Bear Stearns assets to JPMorgan Chase in a takeover bid.

So, to silence objections, the government is looking at proposals to expand the Federal Reserve's role in determining monetary policy.

Two hundred billion in Treasuries will be auctioned over time to Wall Street while the bulls get to use their worthless mortgage-backed securities for collateral. Are they out of their minds?

There are so many things wrong with this picture, beginning with the fact that taxpayers are going to be on the hook for bailing out a publicly held company partially responsible for the mortgage meltdown we're having now. As housing advocates point out, there's nothing to prevent troubled homeowners from defaulting.

But there's really nothing for the people actually extending the credit -- taxpayers, except that crashing markets hurt everyone. It's in their interest to help stabilize the financial markets.

But aren't there any other good ideas out there?

How about this one? Make every top-level Bear Stearns executive who participated in the packaging and reselling of faulty mortgage-backed securities repay their bonuses and stock options from the last five years. Audit the other big investment banks that haven't gone under yet, and get their executives to do the same.

They knew that there was big money in selling these stinkbombs, and they encouraged banks to slide on qualifying homebuyers to get more loans through the pipeline.

And let's stop crying over the homebuyers -- they weren't so innocent either. They were hoping to cash out with a profit before the music stopped just like everybody else.

With the exception of people who were defrauded, most of the borrowers who defaulted were buying beyond their means, putting little or no equity in their homes, and walking away when their subprime teasers reset to rates that would make a loan shark blush.

This cycle of greed has put us in the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. Over 10 percent of all homeowners owe more than their homes are worth.

For those investors who are cheerleading falling home prices, be careful what you wish for. There are pundits out there suggesting that home prices should drop 20 to 30 percent. If they've dropped 10 percent already and we split the different another 15 percent, then one-third of all homeowners are underwater and could walk away from their homes.

That would make the Great Depression look like a mild recession. And that could be the very reason why the Federal Reserve is acting so boldly.

Like it or not, we are going to have to stick together to work through the problems caused by a few.