Well...we already bailed them out. It's a little late for anything else. It also didn't do as much as they had hoped, except buy us a little time. I believe that current thought is going toward supporting mortgages to stop the foreclosures and bring back some stability. There was also an interesting idea to help some private money buy the bad securities and hold them for awhile until they regained value. Lots of ideas out there.
The banks should have been bailed out though. They didn't deserve it, but they needed it. If we had let them all fail, then the economy would have failed. That's just a fact. Most major companies rely on a line of credit to handle large spikes in costs. This includes salaries. A lot of companies would have had emergencies with solvency and employees would have seen weeks of delay in receiving their paychecks (if not more). I dare you to calm that panic.
They also weren't truly bailed out. We just bought stock in them to give them more capital. I can't remember how much was common and how much was preferred, but it was a fairly safe investment.. They shouldn't go bankrupt, so we'll just sell the stock over time once they recover. We are also in a position to better regulate the money. Wasteful activities will really be reeled in in the future (I think). Obama seemed genuinely angry about it and I get the feeling he'll see it through.
