Former Wall Street hotshot, now Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson is orchestrating a big banks “mega-fund” to help mop up the subprime mortgage mess — and try to get some of that bad debt off the books and avoid a deeper credit crunch that could still stove in the U.S. economy.

The stakes are high, but still critics are crying foul. Wall Street titans made vast fortunes playing fast and loose in the run-up, they say. So should Washington be saving their bacon now, when ordinary Americans at the other end of the meltdown are losing their homes?

This hour, On Point: Main Street, millionaires, and moral hazard in the subprime mess.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

David Henry, senior writer at Business Week.

Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University and co-founder of Macro Markets, a specialty investment bank that trades in real estate markets.

Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine.

Roger Ehrenberg, former Wall Street banker, financial blogger at Informationarbitrage.com and president of Monitor 110, a financial intelligence firm.