The big banks will walk away with the Miss Congeniality Award of the Great Recession -- when it comes to federal bailouts, at least. They grudgingly agreed to take some form of federal assistance -- Mellon Bank took the least, just $3 billion -- in the days following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
As far as the general public is concerned, American International Group wins both the Gold Digger and Most Likely to Stay Married awards after the feds ponied up $185 billion in official bailout money in 2008, before the behemoth insurer fell apart. And it's AIG, more than almost any other action, that will haunt the fed for years to come.
I've made my peace with the bank bailouts as well as the stimulus package hurriedly thrown together as the global economy began to jitter apart. Without them, we'd be looking at a very different world right now.
There's plenty of others to go around, of course, in the wake of the Biggest Financial Debacle Since the Last One. And there will be more to come as the feds try to bring in all the money they've pumped into the system before it can trigger runaway inflation.
In the meantime, however, one fed bailout is set to expire -- quietly, with little fanfare. That's the bailout to help the little guys. You know, us.
