It can be seen as a loss in an accounting sense, but it's not a loss in the sense it would be for you, me, or, say, Apple, because the federal government is the

It can be seen as a loss in an accounting sense, but it's not a loss in the sense it would be for you, me, or, say, Apple, because the federal government is the score keeper of the dollar. I like to think of the "losses" which arise from propping up companies (if any, as pointed out it's not necessarily a loss) as subsidies of undesirable behaviour. In other words, they're a very bad thing, just for a different reason.