Then the one lesson everyone should take away from this mess is to never, ever over-leverage, so that you'll never be in the back pocket of "BIG BOND HOLDERS". Let's start by balancing the federal budget - which probrams would you like to cut to reduce spending by $600B?
Which programs to REDUCE expenditures on? How about... Defense Health Care Social Security Medicare Housing Stupid Tax Cuts Many others. It's gotta be done. Oh, and raise consumption tax like HELL to reign in stupid consumer spending on useless/non essential imported consumer garbage. Same goes for gasoline tax. The Europeans have the right idea there. Tax the crap out of gas/consumption before it's too late!
It was said by bernake or paulson that 700B represents 5% of the loans. So I figure that makes 14 trillion.