Treasury Secretary Hank "Sexy Shirtless" Paulson just outlined the government's new plan, kinda. They are still working out the kinks, but the gist is, Fannie and Freddie, which are now run by the government, are going to buy up even more of the mortgages that got them into trouble in the first place. This is going to cost "hundreds of billions of dollars" in taxpayer money. It's unclear how many hundreds of billions of dollars (three? nine? Who cares — Hank Paulson is outta here in a few months' time anyway), but it will be a "significant investment of taxpayer money" and then they hope that will stabilize the housing market and make everything else okay. Oh, and they are going to protect said taxpayer money "as much as possible."