That's way too simple a statement for the US banking system. Banks in the US are regulated by the Federal Reserve, by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and a few others.
FDIC insured accounts are liabilities on a bank's balance sheet.
(I made the mistake of talking when I shouldn't have, I wasn't trying to mislead)
Is the understanding of the financial crisis really this poor? Paulson literally forced the banks to take TARP. The CEO of BofA and other banks that didn't need it spent a lot of time in the media complaining about it.
He also forced the retail banks to merge with and absorb the losses of the investment banks.
He wasn't able to do this because of direct permission, but because the Fed has so much power that everybody just has to listen to what they say.
Yes. One of the great tricks of this disaster (as in most financial crises) is that the powers that be were able to convince to public that there was some single enemy that caused this problem, in this case the "banks", completely ignoring the banks' customers and clients (businesses small and large, mortgage brokers, house-flippers, home-buyers, honest investors, fraudsters, sovereign nations) or the fact that the banks consists of hundreds of thousands of actors working and thinking independently.
This crisis was so much more complicated than "The banks were too greedy". But that's as deep as most people care to get.
That said, the quantitative easing programs are basically bailouts, just not as overt as opening up the public treasury.
The meeting minutes came out in an FOIA request and lawsuit[0]:
> Ben, Sheila, John, Tim and I have asked you here ..
> If a capital fusion is not appealing, you should be aware that your regulator will require it in any circumstance.
[0] http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judic...
In the US, banks are regulated by the Federal Reserve. They have the authority to close and liquidate a bank. They have no authority to bailout a bank. That authority is the responsibility of Congress.
I'm pretty sure it's the same in other countries with a regulated banking sector. The UK parliament decided to bailout their banks, the German senate chose not to.