If a company, like AIG is too big to fail and the government is then required to bail it out, shouldn't the government either prevent companies from getting that big in the first place or require a bigness tax to go into an insurance account that could be used in the event of failure?   Kinda like how earthquake insurance works in CA.  I know this sounds like anti-capitalist heresy but I'm not sure I agree with this too big to fail excuse.

I heard on the radio that more value was lost in the dot com bust than in the mortgage mess yet there was not a government bailout then.  If those are the facts, it underscores that bigness is not necessarily a good thing.

I previously blogged about a speech I heard from the Chinese Vice Chairman last June.  I didn't mention in that post that he talked about the pace of change in China to a capitalist economy.  He said there are those in China who want things to go faster and there are those who are worried about the pace of change being too fast.  He said that there are those that said 'be careful of those on Wall Street and their ways.  We don't necessarily understand what they do and they may trick us.'  It sounds like the more we learn about this mortgage securitzation meltdown, the "go slowers" may have been right.