Like it or not, TARP and the other bailouts saved everyone's arse.
I call bullshit and please define "everyone"?
Depositors and creditors should have been completely wiped out. No exceptions.
The bastion of capitalism turned into a corporate/crony cluster fuck.
If you want to throw Keynes and a social conscience into it for the retirees and "mum & pop" investors, the US could have written checks for $0.50 in the $1 for anyone with assets under $2million.
The printing done each month to "save us" could have bought you a complete universal health care system for everyone of your citizens with change left over.
1. Picture a complete freeze in lending, and a lack of access to cash. No one can buy cars or houses. People with no cash on hand couldn't buy anything. Stores can't stock shelves or pay employees. Forget just the banks, every company from GE to local mom and pop shops would be under within a month. Tens of millions would suddenly find themselves out of work. You'd have mass riots in every major city in the nation. If we were lucky, we would be living in a state of martial law.
2. And as for your ridiculous solution, is this something you actually spent more than 2 seconds to think up? Honestly, how long do you think it would take for the government create this plan, to identify these people, and to mail them checks. A few months? A year?
3. What money was spent? In the end, the banks paid the money back, so what money could have been "saved" for a better use?