If, as Hankster has proposed, we had taken the approach of no TARP and instead let the chips fall where they may as FDIC funds rapidly dwindled there would be an increasing rate of "run on the banks". it would be a snowball effect. We'd be forced to bail out the FDIC or get used to being a third world country. Small banks would be toast. Nobody in their right mind is going to keep large sums in a small bank with the FDIC on the verge of running out of deposit insurance.