Just as a counterpoint to your argument about unstable banks: It appears that the marketplace was sorting out the unstable banks, which is why they needed to be

Just as a counterpoint to your argument about unstable banks: It appears that the marketplace was sorting out the unstable banks, which is why they needed to be "bailed out" by the government. If the government had not intervened, those banks would have been bankrupted, and rightfully so, because they essentially made a giant bet on the housing market and lost. The government intervention in the case of the banks prevented a valuable feedback mechanism from taking place, whereby the "bad players" (as in, bad at the game --- at gambling) would have learned from their mistakes. So instead of the negative feedback of bankruptcy, they got the positive feedback of bailouts, and we should expect to see another financial crisis in the not-too-distant future. What remains to be seen is whether the government itself has a working feedback mechanism for this situation. Will they bail out the banks again? in other words.