My problem is that I still am not sure that the entire crisis wasn't manufactured, or at least greatly exaggerated, to accomplish the political goal of getting Obama elected.
I will figure that out, I suppose, by watching the future endeavors of Mr. Paulson.
My only complaint with the bank bailout was the complete lack of accountability and supervision. That was where the failing occurred.
Your "only complaint?" Now...that's an understatement if I ever saw one. Your second paragraph undermines the whole case you made in the first one. If Romney is such an expert, why didn't he speak out against the "failing" at the time? instead, he panicked and supported a terrible bill (not a good trait in a president). The sad truth is that he. like the others who supported the bailout, inaccurately predicted that it would restore "liquidity." The actual result of Romney's folly is that we are headed for one of two terrible alternatives: nationalization or an even more massive bailout combined with more crippling regulation.
Let's suppose, however, that Romney had (contra history) actually demanded and gotten "accountability." That wouldn't have worked either. We don't live in a magical world where politicians (even if they have business backgrounds) can "plan" the distribution of credit in banking. They tried that in the Soviet Union and it didn't work.
The best alternative then and now was to follow the free market alternative as recommended by the prescient Ron Paul and other critics of the billionaire bailout: bankruptcy. Would there be some short term suffering? Of course! But it would be far less than under the two alternatives created by Romney's folly of ever more massive bailouts and nationalization.