Griffin said that the economy won’t recover until the financial system does, and that the financial system won’t recover until the housing mess is resolved, and that the housing mess won’t be resolved until the huge overhang of unsold real-estate is dealt with, and that the huge overhang of unsold real-estate won’t come off the market unless and until people start buying houses again, and that people won’t start buying houses again unless they can come up with downpayments, and that people clearly can’t come up with downpayments because the US savings rate has essentially been zero for most of the past decade. So Griffin’s proposed solution was for the government to provide low-cost, full-recourse 20% downpayment loans to anybody who wants to buy a house. Yes, he said, no-money-down house purchases were what got us into this mess to begin with, but we kinda need them in order to get out of the mess too.