it was already imploding some. We'll never know how much more worse it could have been, but... Bear Stearns had already closed and the world didn't collapse.

it was already imploding some. We'll never know how much more worse it could have been, but... Bear Stearns had already closed and the world didn't collapse. If a couple investment banks had closed, would everything have stopped? The big boys would have found a way to keep going pretty quickly. As it stands, the 'fix' still ended up keeping most previously normally available capital for average people on hold for years, grinding many regions to a virtual standstill with respect to housing/travel/construction/etc. So... even with the massive bailout, the majority of average people got hit pretty hard, and many are still recovering as their regions try to fight back from the economic collapse, while we read about bankers bitching that their bonuses were only in the single digit millions for so many years.