The bailout bill is not going to fix the economy. As Reuters reports, "experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again."

The problem is that housing in the United States is in a bear market and the bear market in housing is not over. There is still too much excess inventory in what were the "hot markets". You can find actual ghost towns outside of San Diego and in Nevada. Take a trip from Las Vegas to Laughlin Nevada and you can go off the main road and find a ghost town.

When the Fed lowered rates in 1998 to bailout the Long-Term Capital hedge fund on behalf of Wall Street they created an artificial bubble in the stock market. They pumped excess money into the economy and that money flowed into technology and Internet stocks. As a result they created an unsustainable bubble and when that bubble burst the Nasdaq went into a two and a half year bear market.

That bear market ran its course despite the Fed lowering interest again to the lowest levels seen in decades. The rates were so low that banks went crazy lending money. As a result a bubble in real estate formed in the United States as speculators bid up the price of condos and homes in a dozen or so hot markets. Prices went to irrational levels and of course when this happens a bear market follows.

That bear market will not end just because the Fed bails out banks. It will end when the excess inventory created by this real estate bubble is slowly bought off the market and prices come down to a level that makes sense from an investment standpoint. Home prices are not going to bottom because people all of a sudden start to throw money at houses with the thought they are going to make a big return when they appreciate in value. The bottom will come when investors can buy properties with the intention of making a profit from renting them. The condo flipping game is over and is not coming back.

We are probably a year away from the bottom in real estate.

What this means is that the bailout bill will do absolutely nothing to help the real economy.

That is why after the bill passed the stock market fell anyway.

Mike Swanson is Editor, Wallstreet Window