Urban Institute: Foreclosure backlog to 'take decades to complete'

There's a good chance there will be parts of the country that may never recover. My belief is that all of the government programs put into place simply created a false bottom (not to mention they were a huge failure). We need a rock solid bottom in order to be able to move forward. As I've stated before the Fed simply should have told all the lenders in 2008 that they (the Fed) would purchase any defaulted loan at .50 cents on the dollar. Sure, at the time many of the banks would have told the Fed "thanks but no thanks". But as they dug themselves deeper (and with no bailout money to save them) they would have changed their tune. Then the Fed could have modified the loans any way they liked. Yes, there would have been multiple banks going under. But their assets most certainly would have been picked up by stronger banks.

http://www.housingwire.com/2011/12/29/urban-institute-foreclosure-backlog-to-take-decades-to-complete