"Who Really Dug Us Out of the Great Recession?" from time.com/money, updated: Jan 13, 2016.

EXCERPTS: "Didn’t the Bush administration preside over the whole banking mess that led to the Great Recession?  Yes, that’s a fair assessment.  But with banks about to melt down, the Treasury Department began buying up risky mortgage bonds, taking them out of banks' hands and assuring investors around the world that whatever happened, U.S. banks would be able to pay their debts.

"Sadly, in the current environment, one good test of how much a program is motivated by actual economics, not politics, is how unpopular it is.  And TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) was pretty much as unpopular as a program could be.

“Bank bailout,” may be two of the ugliest words in the English language.  Nonetheless, it was effective and necessary enough for the Obama administration to continue along much the same course, for which then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was endlessly pilloried.--con't below.