[kiba]

Unprofitable firms and crippled fianancial insitituions are a libability to the economy. Proping them up with stolen taxpayer money is not a sound way to run an economy.

Profit and loss exists for a reason, they finetune the allocation of resource to ones we find most efficent. If we don't allow the bust to run the course, than we will be less prosperous in the long run.

Beside, this is not the end of the world. We suffered worser recession like the recession of 1921.(Yes, worser than the Great Depression) Then the 1920s became the roaring 20s.

[Rod]

I am also a fan of "Darwinian Capitalism", but AIG and other huge financial institutions aren't called "too big to fail" without a reason. I advocate pragmatism over blind ideology. As much as I would like to see AIG implode, I think one should be careful and take into account what that would imply, and how the shockwave of destruction would affect the rest of the economy. All in all, all I am saying is: analyze the problem, make decisions based on data, not based on gut feelings or dogma.

Last but not least: the financial world in the 1920s was completely different than what it is today. Unfortunately, in Economics experiments are not exactly reproducible. For one reason they call it the dismal science, right?