Also, if we expect government regulators to protect bank executives from their own incompetence and make sure no banks ever go under, this brings up the questio

Also, if we expect government regulators to protect bank executives from their own incompetence and make sure no banks ever go under, this brings up the question of why we need bank executives at all. Just let the government run the banks or, since there would no longer be competition between banks, roll all deposits and assets into one big government-run bank. An alternate, roughly equivalent scheme is to shut down all private banks and give everyone a Fed account.