The article goes on regarding how this would help stabilize the system for all of us.

snip

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the future of asset values and the prices of complicated derivatives like mortgage-based securities, the banks are hoarding money. They lack trust even to lend to each other. Reducing mortgage principals addresses both of those problems directly. By stabilizing the mortgage markets, much of the uncertainty will vanish. Banks' balance sheets could stabilize. And confidence may very well return.

snip

Yes, personal responsibility... like the personal responsibility of those who designed mortgages and sold them even though they were not basing them on the person's ability to pay. That is at the root of the global investment crisis. The ratings firms also rated those mortgages for investments when they should not have been.

Did anyone else watch CNBC's report last night on how all these bad mortgages were designed, given good ratings, and packaged as "investments" that were sold all over the world?
HOUSE OF CARDS Inside the sub-prime mortgage crisis

Link:http://www.cnbc.com/id/28892719

quote from a Wall Street email regarding these mortgage investment packages, "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters." 12/15/06 email date

Many of them KNEW it was going to cause a crash, as the mortgages had a false value. And yet they were getting rich, so they sold them anyway. Yes, people should not have over stretched to get a home. But designing mortgage packages in the first place that were meant to be sold to people who had no proof of being able to pay was the first act of irresponsibility.