From The panic tax
1. The cost of ameliorating panic in your system is always less than the cost of the lost productivity when panic hits. In other words, all the other steps are worth it
Agree. That’s my rationale for supporting TARP, in that the nominal cost of the bailout (about $700 billion) was dwarfed by the indirect (staved off panic, rising stocks, improved confidence) value it created. Sometimes the best policy is the polity no one likes, but creates the most indirect value, boosting the ‘common good’. As measured by indirect value, TARP may have had the highest ROI of any government program in recent history.