[JasonC]

Neither. When he take his loss and gets an honest job, and you take your portion of the hit when his bank gets clobbered, then you can both put his mistake behind you. But you can no more avoid negative side effects of his mistakes, than you can avoid being at war in wartime. Same boat, consequences, no expections, no moralizing matters. If the world is poorer, then so are you.

[cripplecreek]

When he take his loss and gets an honest job, and you take your portion of the hit

Ain't socialism grand?

[freeandfreezing]

When he take his loss and gets an honest job, and you take your portion of the hit when his bank gets clobbered, then you can both put his mistake behind you.

That's an interesting theory. By that logic, whenever a business transaction goes bad everybody else should "take your portion of the hit". I like that idea. Whenever I have a customer who doesn't pay his bill to my business I guess I should get bailed out by the government, and everybody else can chip in so that I don't lose the money. That's a great plan.

Why is it that those who made the bad business decisions in this mess don't just lose their assets? Why should the rest of us "take a portion of the hit" for them?

If the taxpayers are going to put up a giant pile of cash we should do with it as smart investors do - buy the good assets and leave the bad ones to rot.