Yes but if you let the banks go down, they would have taken each other down, and the entire economy would have gone down a black hole. That's why I said 'close

Yes but if you let the banks go down, they would have taken each other down, and the entire economy would have gone down a black hole. That's why I said 'closest thing' to capitalism, because capitalism would have eaten itself in 2008. A better bailout would have been to wipe out bank shareholders and nationalize the banks for a few years.