Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, actually it was the alternative that we used in this country up through the 19th century and actually into the first part, maybe the first third, of the 20th century. The notion was that banking is like any other sector and that is, that if it has problems and there are some losses and some banks go belly up, well, let them do it, let them take their lumps. Let them take their losses, and they'll come back stronger. And that's exactly what we did, as I said, in the 19th and early 20th century. I think the problem with that approach is that banking is special. It is the central core, if you will, of our economic system because it's where money flows into from lenders; it flows out from borrowers, and we need that flow of money - kind of like blood in a person's body - to make the entire economy function. So when the banking sector goes down, it can cause a very long and deep recession, and indeed, we learned that in the 19th and early 20th century. It was one of the reasons why the Federal Reserve was created. One of the reasons why in the 1930s, we decided and realized that we had to have federal intervention when you have these banking crises. So this isn't really new. It may be new in terms of the size and scope of the problem, but it's not really new. It's really the approach that we've taken for the last 70 years. That is, when the banking sector has a problem, the federal government views its role is to go in and try to prop up the banks in order to keep the economy rolling and prevent an even deeper recession."