All regulation is ostensibly about the government stepping in and "cleaning up" private behavior that is detrimental to society. Bailouts fit that description t

All regulation is ostensibly about the government stepping in and "cleaning up" private behavior that is detrimental to society. Bailouts fit that description too, so they're very similar if not in name. The government stepped in and decided that it would not let a company fail as "the market decided" it should, but instead it should change that outcome and spend money to keep these failed companies running. This is certainly not a case of the market running itself. Ignoring the massive regulations on banks and inter dependency between banking and fiscal and economic policy for a minute, you might say "oh but the market did run itself and these banks crashed and it would have been bad for society if that were to happen so the government had to step in". But that's how all regulation is justified. I think that's where the other comments are coming from anyway. But I'm not sure it's entirely fair, because I think it's not unreasonable to say some amount of regulation makes sense to prevent problems that would require more invasive and costly regulation or intervention later. In other words, heap big regulation bad not mean little regulation bad.