The bank bailouts is distinct from Quantitative Easing. The former was government backed loans to large banks. The latter is the Federal Reserve buying extremel

The bank bailouts is distinct from Quantitative Easing. The former was government backed loans to large banks. The latter is the Federal Reserve buying extremely over-valued financial assets (over-valued because of fraud), and then just financial assets in general, in order to prop up the price of these assets. The former was probably a necessary evil, but it should have come with more changes. The latter is less clear. Because of the massive amounts of fraud that occured, many citizens pension funds were extremely exposed to junk financial assets. So the Fed decided they couldn't let the market correct itself. But a better solution would have been a market correction combined with a direct stimulus to the lower and middle class.