If Congress had not acted to bail out the various banking institutions during the crisis, about half of wage earning American's would have suddenly discovered that:
- they did not get paid
- they cannot access their bank account
Even if true, how about we give those trillions directly to the people and/or cancel their mortgages instead of propping up the system that caused the problem.
I bet a bank facing the loss of all its mortgages would be a damn sight more careful with their money than one that isn't.
The government also needs to step in every time they see a lot of money being magicked out of thin air by people near the bottom of the food chain (eg. the dotcom bubble, housing bubble, etc.). That never leads to anything other than collapse, a lot of rich people getting richer and the poor people picking up the tab.