The finance industry went through a huge contraction during the crisis. It was not smooth sailing on some sweet government money.

Sure, they fired a lot of employees, but I wasn't exactly talking about the branch managers or salaried analysts when I said bankers. The Lehman Brothers executives still paid themselves $100M three days before the bankrupcy, and the others weren't exactly on ramen noodles either.

Nevertheless we the people paid for the risk with none of the upside.

Perhaps. But they would have made even more money if the financial crisis never happened. We've got a case where executives make bad decisions for short-term personal gain.

This assumption that people always work for the long-term gain, even for themselves, was proven wrong in the financial crisis. The economy is made up of humans, and humans make mistakes.

Later, you bring up the point of $100 million paid to the Lehman Brothers executives. Do you know how much they got every year ? These guys are paid $50 million / year or $30 million / year PLUS stock options... if they wanted to make more money, they should have kept Lehman Brothers operating for just 3 more years.