In a short term measure, the Federal Reserve will be taking some of the heat off the very banks which helped create the foreclosure crisis hitting the United States.

The Federal Reserve Board has decided to take measures outside of merely controlling short term interest rates in another attempt to ease the credit crunch, and will be trading $200 billion of Treasury notes for mortgage-backed securities with dubious heritage, which have become nearly impossible to trade on the open market.

What will this mean for the 5 million to 7 million families facing foreclosure? Nothing. The Federal Reserve and the administration of President George W. Bush seem completely devoted to bailing out the banks and other financial institutions which helped create the debacle, while leaving it to those very banks to voluntarily work out problem mortgage loans with no mandates or guidelines to prevent a looming economic crisis.

The first of the massive security swap auctions is set to take place March 27. Perhaps other strings should be attached to those auctions, instead of putting another carrot in front of the noses of the very horses that galloped headlong toward this precipice, dragging millions of middle class citizens with them.