The US government is far deeper in debt [1] than any of the companies it is bailing out. Unsurprisingly, about seven percent of American voters think their government should bail out financial institutions, while 65 percent think the failed companies should file bankruptcy. A new survey from Rasmussen [2] suggests that the majority of Americans approve of the Fed's decision to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt on Sunday, but disapprove of yesterday's decision to use $85 billion in taxpayer money to save AIG [3].

One Yale scholar thinks he has a golden idea: a "failure tax." Jonathan G S Koppel wrote in the New York Times [4] that investment banks and similar companies should pay catastrophic risk insurance premiums to the government, that would cover the cost of better regulation and and bail outs, just like other companies pay the government for food or crop insurance.

Even though bailouts usually end in increased taxes and increased deficit for taxpayers, do you think it's the way to avoid financial crisis?

Source [5]