Tell me again why we didn't nationalize the "too big to fail" banks?

[Toucano]

The solution of giving them money without reform has worked out SO well!

[enlightenment]

1. Because we had to protect free market capitalism.

Same reason we won't get a single-payer, nationalized health care system (even though it's cheaper and better than the alternatives).

[Oregone]

4. Pretty much true

Its idealogical. Some "believe" (or pretend) that more positive effects are gained by the preservation of private ownership than the alternative, even if it manifests itself in negative ways. Essentially, the very existence of a private shareholder amounts to more "good" in a society than the "bad" imparted by a starving and homeless family that shareholder helps create.

[geek tragedy]

2. Because it wasn't authorized by Congress, because

the Treasury Department is barely able to regulate and audit, let alone manage, banks with trillions and trillions of dollars of assets, and because the government would have wound up selling the banks after nationalizing them to the biggest surviving banks, leaving the US with JP Morgan Chase as a monopolist.

[JVS]

3. Because the plutocrats' interests are not served by nationalization.

[valerief]

5. Because we are not a free country. nt

[AllentownJake]

6. Because it made the most sense economically

but the least sense politically.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Because the politicians didn't want to kill the golden goose that provides their income.

[Gman]

8. Because we don't want to

we shouldn't have to be running banks along with everything else that needs to be done.