I've already mentioned McCain's hail mary economic socialism to physically buy people's mortgages, and then refinance them at their current value, but more details are coming out:

For those that cannot make payments, mortgages must be re-structured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages. Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.

The McCain Resurgence Plan would purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers, and replace them with manageable, fixed-rate mortgages that will keep families in their homes. By purchasing the existing, failing mortgages the McCain resurgence plan will eliminate uncertainty over defaults, support the value of mortgage-backed derivatives and alleviate risks that are freezing financial markets.

The McCain resurgence plan would be available to mortgage holders that:

• Live in the home (primary residence only)
• Can prove their creditworthiness at the time of the original loan (no falsifications and provided a down payment).

The new mortgage would be an FHA-guaranteed fixed-rate mortgage at terms manageable for the homeowner. The direct cost of this plan would be roughly $300 billion because the purchase of mortgages would relieve homeowners of "negative equity" in some homes. Funds provided by Congress in recent financial market stabilization bill can be used for this purpose; indeed by stabilizing mortgages it will likely be possible to avoid some purposes previously assumed needed in that bill.

This is directly from the McCain campaign site.  Does anyone notice any missing provisions?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior domestic policy adviser, said on Wednesday that McCain's plan calls for the government to pay full face value for troubled mortgages on properties that are now worth less than the loans. That's a big distinction from a congressional plan that took effect on Oct. 1 and requires lenders to take a significant loss, reducing the loan values to 90 percent of the homes' current appraised values. Another key difference: Congress' plan requires homeowners who receive a refinanced loan to share any future appreciation in home value with the government; McCain's plan does not.

That blurb is from McCain's senior domestic policy adviser.  Did you notice it there?  I put it in bold so you could see.  So let's go through a small example.

Joe Six Pack^TM has a crappy job, and hasn't saved much money, but was somehow able to get a mortgage for a $500,000 home.  Remember, his creditworthiness had to be proven at the time of the loan which means using the standards of that time.  But of course, we all know that the standards at the time of the loan were pure shit.  He was able to put down a tiny down payment, but not much.  There was a balloon interest rate provision, but he wasn't worried about, because after all, the market keeps going up!  He didn't necessarily want to live in the house for long, he'd either flip it or maybe refinance and make a killing either way.  We know today he was wrong.  Suddenly now, his house is only worth $250,000.

Thank God for John McCain.  John will come in and refinance his home at the new market value!  But what happens in let's say three years when portions of the housing market recover?  Let's say in 3 years, his house is now worth $400,000.  Under normal market circumstances, Joe Six Pack^TM would lose $100,000.  And you know what, he should.  He took on a risky mortgage, and bet that the housing market would go a certain way.  He was wrong.  But thanks to John McCain, Joe will now pocket $150,000.  And John McCain thinks this is a feature, not a bug.