[YZF]

We don't know what the other options look like. A broader collapse of the economy, runs on banks? If the government stayed out then the outcome could have been worse for the average taxpayer.

I do agree it looks bad if bankers can take huge risks and benefit (personally) from the upside without a downside risk. But it's not necessarily the bailout that's the problem here and the taxpayers do have the theoretical power to vote for people who can change this.

[roenxi]

> We don't know what the other options look like. A broader collapse of the economy, runs on banks? If the government stayed out then the outcome could have been worse for the average taxpayer.

What courses of action does that argument not justify? "We had a predictable emergency and decided to panic and hand out money. Don't expect us to really think about alternatives." is not the course of action that really speaks to me for getting good results for taxpayers, or anyone except the people directly getting the money.

We have a playbook for getting a statistically good outcome when people run out of money. It is called bankruptcy. I can see how a banker could confuse that with a bailout because they both start with a "b" and there are a lot of letters - but the stark truth is they are different words.

[YZF]

But the issues here were systemic and there was worry of contagion. I guess a question would be whether the people who made the decision had conflicts of interest that impacted those decisions.

So this argument doesn't justify any course of action but is does justify a course of actions with poor optics that seems reasonable given the risks.