Occupy Wall Street

[Nowake]

I think there should not and cannot be a "too big to fail", neither banks nor Greece or anyone and by intervening our governments are messing up the free market that should regulate itself, using money of people who aren't really involved, much less responsible for the problems. I don't care whether the economy would fail otherwise, in that case the free market and economy are simply a failure and shouldn't be artificially sustained, period.

While I agree with you that "too big to fail" cannot be allowed, it always has to be a preemptive action. You must regulate the market so that there are zero "too big to fail" institutions. If you get in the position where they are "too big to fail", well, the expression means exactly what it says really, the effects are too disastrous and simply thinking you can bite on the bullet and survive the rough-patch won't do, that option has already been eliminated when you put the TBTF label.
You get back on your feet, then knock them down to size. That it didn't happen is a separate issue of the US (and now EU) political system.

I know it's not what one wants to hear, but it is also the inescapable truth. Twenty Lehman's at once would lead to more than blood in the streets eventually and while you may think that necessary, it never is an option for the ones who won't make it until the end. So these arguments at this point in time are superfluous.

[Husar]

Twenty Lehman's at once would lead to more than blood in the streets eventually

Why exactly? What will happen once Germany and the US can't pay back all their debts either? Will the banks bail them out? What if all the bailouts fail and the banks fail AND the governments go bankrupt as well, AFTER all those bailouts?
Our governemnt had really nice plans to pay off all the debts because it was REALLY URGENT and all they have done since then was take up even more urgent so by now all that urgency is long overdue. Now even if we could potentially pay off all that debt in 20 years (we won't do that anyway), that's just wishful thinking because I'm sure there will be plenty more bailouts in the next 20 years, so when is this ever going to end?

[Montmorency]

So the house is moldy and drafty and the roof leaks when it rains. Tornados and sinkholes are constantly taking chunks out of it. The utilities are old-fashioned, non-functional and expensive. The kids keep breaking the windows, and the teenager upstairs has entered his rebellious phase.
So we should just demolish it and have a new house built? But where will we stay? How will we pay? Is there no other way?

The neighbors live in a storage shed, and I don't think there's enough room for us...