>>>Extending the analogy to its limit, bankers and investment bankers are like savage dogs. It's in their DNA. They care about nothing other than personal enrichment. Which is understandable. You just don't let those dogs run free. In this case they can't just be put down -- too big to fail, in the term of art -- but you sure better keep them on a strong leash.
>>
>>Why not fail? Why bail them out? If they fail, the economy won't have the money?
>>
>>This doesn't make sense, you give more money to the corrupt gambler middleman, because he promises he'll give that money to the needy, instead of giving it straight to the needy and letting the bastard go flip burgers.
>>
>>The "too big to fail" is the public service message, brought to you by your [S]loan sharks[/S] underwriter service.
>
>I believe the many unaffiliated economists who believe things would have been far worse if they had been allowed to fail.
>
>One thing I try never to leave out of these discussions is that the so-called bailout made a profit. Don't try telling most American voters that, of course. According to exit polls it was a major reason for the popularity of the Republican and Tea parties last fall, even though it was completely fictitious. H.L. Mencken was right. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/bailout-of-wall-street-returns-8-2-profit-to-taxpayers-beating-treasuries.html

Snippet:
“From the perspective of the taxpayers getting their money back, TARP has been a great success,” said Todd Petzel, chief investment officer at New York-based Offit Capital Advisors LLC, which has more than $5 billion of assets under management. “But there are other costs as the government made it possible for the banks to pay back TARP. Those costs can turn out to be larger, and their legacy could last longer.”

Yeah, like the 14-19 billion cost that isn't in those numbers....
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/30/news/economy/tarp_program/index.htm