> Milton friedman would have said to let the banks fail, but the governments didn't, and that expectation is one of the causes cited for banks taking such large

> Milton friedman would have said to let the banks fail, but the governments didn't, and that expectation is one of the causes cited for banks taking such large risks. This can't be repeated enough. The banks should have bit the dust. A great many pensioners and households would have suffered, but then the government could have introduced emergency bankruptcy laws and ameliorated the worst of it. The crash would have provided its own antidote. http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/bankruptcy-is-the-gamechanger-to-force-the-banks-hands-317311.html http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/bankruptcy-... In my country every person I ever talked to was against the bank bailouts. Democracy didn't happen here and neither did capitalism. That's the inconvenient reality for the left and right. Their old enemies aren't to blame. What we have is a failure of governance, not ideology. The European Union officials were right behind the government in this. We actually have phone recordings of corrupt bankers describing manipulating idiot government officials. http://www.thejournal.ie/the-anglo-tapes-9-jaw-dropping-quotes-from-before-the-bailout-964097-Jun2013/ http://www.thejournal.ie/the-anglo-tapes-9-jaw-dropping-quot... Then later the EU forced the debt down our throats. With friends like this... I'd like to know what the leftist solution is to that. We can't replace unelected officials. Because they seem to just go back to their hobby horse of blaming the capitalism ideology for this. One capitalist solution would be to get rid of central bank controlled interest rates. The governance problem remains unsolved though and all this could basically happen again.