Wall Street, banks and economists are now worried. The people who supply the big bucks for political campaigns are worried.

The trigger was the "subprime crisis." Lenders were pushing mortgages with a teaser period of low interest rate, followed in a couple years by big interest and payment increases.

A recent study revealed that half of the people who took out the subprime loans would have qualified for standard loans. Either they asked the lender to give them a terrible deal or they were slick-talked into bad deals. I suspect the latter.

Time passes, interest payments balloon, and foreclosures result. Millions of families are losing their homes. Forecasts are: it will be worse in 2008 than it was in 2007.

With more homes on the market, values are falling. People are losing their primary equity, the value of their homes. Take out a loan against your mortgage for purchases or to help finance your child's college? Forget it.

A stimulus package is now in the works. One goal: get some quick cash to people so they spend it and thereby liven up the economy. Another step is positive if it is substantial - streamline the process for distressed homeowners to refinance or rework their mortgages.

The problems and necessary solutions are much more extensive.

Our unemployment rate is over 5% and increasing. Many have exceeded the 26 week period of eligibility. It must be extended.

The wages of the average worker have steadily fallen over the last 30 years. Families have compensated by both parents being in the workforce, by taking on extra jobs, and by going into debt, especially mortgages and credit cards. These options are pretty much used up.

We have a pathetic minimum wage even with the recent increase. We are a rich nation. Our rate of poverty - over 12% - is inexcusable. In addition to issues of basic social justice, impoverished people cannot help stimulate the economy.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, even more than is usual. The wealth disparity is now the greatest since 1929, just before the great depression. The economy has been expanding mostly into the pockets of the top one percent, especially the top one tenth of one percent. A sound economy requires a government attuned to the people, not just the very rich.

Over half of our discretionary budget goes for war. We are spending as much on war as the total rest of the world. We must halt our pointless wars and redirect our resources to human needs. This is how we can maintain a sound economy.

Our national debt is now approaching 10 trillion dollars. The interest on the national debt is the second largest budget category, second only to war. This is wasted money

Our cost of medical care and medications is the highest, per capita, in the world. Forty seven million of our people do not have medical coverage. Many of those with insurance are going through bankruptcy and loss of their homes because of the cost of medical care. This does not make for a sound economy.

Despite the prices we pay, the World Health Organization ranks us as 37th in our medical care, mostly because lack of access. We are the only industrialized nation that does not ensure medical coverage to its people.

If we want older folks to live in some dignity - and stimulate the economy - we must protect Social Security. The only significant social security crisis is this: successive administrations have raided and spent the Social Security Trust Funds. In ten years or so it will be time to begin paying it back.

Impoverishing our elders will not help our economy.

The overhead on Social Security is 2 or 3 percent. Try to find those rates anywhere else.

Maintain inheritance taxes. This is a way to put some limits on the extreme concentration of wealth. Four of the ten richest people in our country are the offspring of Sam Walton. Does this make sense? Money is power. If there are no controls on concentration of wealth, we may as well revert to an inherited monarchy.

Rebuild our long-neglected infrastructure - mass transit, electrical grids, roads, bridges, even New Orleans. This would provide essential and meaningful jobs.

Emphasize conservation and renewable energies, particularly solar and wind. These create jobs locally and still save money. We can stop sending our wealth to the Middle East. In the case of Nebraska, we can stop spending our money on Wyoming coal by shifting to Nebraska sun and wind.

As odd as it may seem, social justice and stewardship are the best ways to maintain our economy.