That makes sense. If the government were able to do all of that super fast it might be been fine. I just don't get all of the hate for the bailouts. I know it feel's like to many people the banks sort of "got away with it" but the bailout both stopped any bad effects from failed banks and the government made money off of it so it seems like a win-win for society in my perspective
If it's a win-win, then it should be okay - even good! - for the banks+government to do it again. After all, everyone made money and the economy only almost collapsed, not actually.
Regardless of the actual dollar amounts changed hands, what the US Federal government demonstrated was that risky - even illegal - behavior will be covered and some losses will be covered. It means that next time (and there will be one), we should assume the risks and losses will be even bigger.
But the current system was insufficient to stop the previous failure, too. Wouldn't bailing them out short term and then adding some regulation long term be a sufficient solution?
If the global financial system was built on a blockchain, couldn't we just fork and rollback the bad transactions?
But more seriously, why did the resolution have to be a bailout. Could someone with the authority, and here I mean The Government, because they've got the guns, just tell the banks to rollback the wonky transactions?
When financial catastrophes are "bailed out", the main effect is not the money gained or lost by the involved parties. Rather, the main effect is the inevitable identical-but-larger financial catastrophes that will result when rational bankers compare speculative upsides to presumably bailoutable downsides.
