"Who paid? Seems to me the taxpayers did"

The thousands of bankers that lost their jobs.

Major banks collapsed.

Entire divisions were shut down.

Banks did not concoct their near-death demise, even though it was self-inflicted.

Yes, arguably taxpayers 'paid' as well with unfair bailouts, but there's no case to be made that the banks 'won' in this one. They would have preferred to avoid that crash altogether.

I'm not suggesting that they are not mostly 'at fault' - but they were not criminal, is my point.

It would be unwise to seek to blood when really what is needed is some smarter regulatory conditions.

Would the taxpayers have received a payout if the banks bets went as planned? The taxpayers absorbed the risk from the banks, they won.

Taxpayers seem to have received excessively good deals on mortgages.

People who had mortgages received benefits perhaps, not taxpayers in general.