They acted quickly and avoided a worst-case outcome. As such it was effective.

However, arguably the bank bailouts could have had much better terms for the taxpayer - most of the upside was realised by bank shareholders who were not wiped out, rather than the taxpayer who bore the risk.

For comparison, Warren Buffet also recapitalised some banks in the depth of the crisis, demanded and got long-term warrants that paid out truly humongous amounts of money once bank shares rose back to pre-crisis levels. Tax payers - in comparison - got a few percent of interest rather than adequate compensation for the risk they bore.

Nothing terrible happened to the US economy, compared to past banking failures I would call that a success. However, it's really hard to compare such things across vastly different time periods.

That line is a whopper! All they managed to do was conceal fundamental problems a bit longer by offloading crap assets on the taxpayers. And, possibly, make the inevitable bank failures more spectacular and destructive when they do happen.

The effectiveness of the changes is subject to political interpretation. American banks are strong right now which indicates our policy decisions weren't bad. Whether they were good or not is debatable.

Absolutely not.