evidence: During the 2008 financial crisis, there was no way to extinguish the flames without bailing out some of the financial arsonists, although it’s a myth that none of them paid any price, and the bailouts ended up turning a profit for taxpayers. The Biden administration’s more modest SVB bailout shouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime either, and so far there’s been no need to bail out any arsonists, although some depositors (including solar developers as well as wealthy tech bros) who wrongly assumed their building was safe were protected from losses. They weren’t protected because they were innocent or worthy or entitled to protection. They were protected to quell a panic, because panic is what turns local financial fires into systemic conflagrations. [...] The conventional wisdom at the time, and still today, was that the government bailed out Wall Street while screwing Main Street. But the reason the government bailed out Wall Street was to prevent the banking crisis from turning into a second Great Depression that really would have screwed Main Street. The financial rescues of 2008 all helped stabilize the system; the fall of Lehman, which the government failed to rescue, is what nearly dragged the system into the abyss. [...] Financial stability, unfortunately, tends to breed overconfidence. I must confess that in 2018 when President Donald Trump signed a bill relaxing Dodd-Frank’s oversight rules for SVB-size banks, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I didn’t think it was a big deal, either. (Whoops.)